


Beautiful Storm

by Weltatlas



Category: Alex Verus Series - Benedict Jacka
Genre: Alex is a Merman, Alternate Universe - Mermaid, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Morden is a pirate, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 39,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21532171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weltatlas/pseuds/Weltatlas
Summary: Despite everything that has happened, Alex is still fascinated by everything human. Other merfolk always warned him that his unbridled curiosity would eventually be the end of him, and they hadn’t been wrong. But he isn’t a naïve and careless juvenile anymore, his experiences have made him more cautious. Not cautious enough, however, as he will be forced to learn soon…A Mordex mermaid and pirate AU
Relationships: Morden/Alex Verus, Mordex
Comments: 82
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was partially inspired by [this](https://amaranthia-draws.tumblr.com/post/184671885492/mermay-this-time-two-in-one) amazing picture [amaranthia-draws](https://amaranthia-draws.tumblr.com/) made! Also can only recommend checking out her Alex Verus tag (and the entire blog in general) for more awesome art!

Thunder cracked as another lightning bolt flashed across the sky, illuminating the roaring waves beneath. The ocean was raging under the heavy rain, the swell large enough to have arisen from every sailor’s nightmares. Alex thought it was beautiful. Seafoam sprayed as he dove into the waters, rushing through darkness for a moment, before he jumped back into the air, the blue scales of his tail glinting in the burst of light. He shot through the waves, feeling the magic brimming all around, and followed the enticing pull of the treasure.

He had been about to give up this hunt and return to the safety of the reef, when he’d finally caught the distant call. Fully aware that the treasure would be located in an area that was heavily frequented by Navy and pirate ships a like, he had been on the fence about whether or not to pursue it, but then the oncoming storm had solved that dilemma. Not even the boldest sailor would dare to risk their life to catch a merman in a storm like this. He would be perfectly safe, and besides, he had already swum so far, he couldn’t let this prize slip through his fingers now.

Luna never liked it when he left the reef to hunt for abandoned treasure hoards or to scavenge in sunken shipwrecks. Especially with the latter he just couldn’t help himself, despite everything that had happened, he was still fascinated by everything human. His parents had always warned him that his unbridled curiosity would eventually be the end of him, and they hadn’t been wrong. But he wasn’t a naïve and careless juvenile anymore, his experiences had made him more cautious. Not cautious enough, however, as he would be forced to learn soon. 

Finally Alex spotted sparkling in the distance, amidst a small cluster of steep rocks rising above the water. Maybe the turbulent current had upheaved another merfolk’s hoard from its hiding place, or maybe a small ship had split on the rocks. Alex’s precognition gave a ping of warning, but he put it on the dangerously strong waves that threatened to smash him against the protruding rocks. He couldn’t wait to see what the treasure would be, it felt big and valuable, and the bright reflections from the lightning looked promising as well. 

Fighting against the undertow that pulled him towards the sharp edges of stone he carefully swam closer, when a large wave picked him up and transported him a lot nearer than he’d intended. His precognition screamed, but it was too late. There was a loud _crack_ as a spell went off, followed by the rattling of chains, and suddenly he was surrounded by thick, criss-crossing rope.  
A net, Alex realised, turning rapidly in search of an opening, but quickly found himself to be enclosed completely. Panic rose in him; this couldn’t be happening. He had sworn himself to stay away from humans, to never get involved with them again; he couldn’t get caught by them. Not again.

He desperately pulled at the net, but it wouldn’t rip one bit. His hands came away burning, inflamed red lines blooming in his palms. Silver. The ropes were reinforced with silver threads. Alex screeched; the sound drowned out by the roar of the storm. He thrashed against the net, but every touch increased the pain the silver caused him. Despair filled him, he had to get out of this trap before whoever had set it came back to collect their catch, and he howled when not even his long claws and razor-sharp teeth were able to sever the strong ropes. Next to him there was a magnificent, jewel encrusted golden mirror tethered to the side of the rock, sparkling brightly in the flashing lights of the storm, mocking him in its brilliance.

~~~

The storm subsided in the early hours of the morning, and exhausted from fighting against the powerful waves and his fruitless attempts to escape the net, Alex drifted into an uneasy sleep. He awoke with a start and the premonition of danger, and a bottomless trench opened inside his stomach when he saw what had caused it. There was the dark hull of a ship in the distance, quickly coming closer, purposefully advancing towards the small cluster of rocks he had been caught in. All his instincts screamed at him to flee, but the silver enforced net prevented that, and so he was forced to watch on helplessly as the ship pulled up next to him. Sadly, it didn’t split on the rocks but threw its anchor just in the right moment to safely come to a halt beside them. Who ever this ship belonged to knew this terrain and had picked it deliberately to set a trap – and Alex had swum right into it.

He didn’t know whether he’d been caught by the Navy or pirates, but despite the former’s insistence on upholding justice and virtue, he knew that it barely made a difference. Sure, the Navy usually didn’t outright force merfolk into servitude, like pirates were prone to do, and therefore prided themselves on the ethical contracts they offered – in theory, at least. In practice merfolk officially employed by the Navy weren’t necessarily treated much better than those captured by pirates, nor were the contracts as easy to terminate as they seemed. Alex had been offered a job only recently – the Admiral with thinning white hair and eerily colourless eyes had called down at him from the deck of his ship, and as any sensible merfolk would have done, Alex had merely made a crude gesture in reply before swimming away.

Suddenly a jolt went through the net and Alex began to panic earnest, pushing against the ropes and trying to swim down, but all he gained were additional welts from the silver. Alex thrashed in the net and gasped when he was pulled from the water, the gills at the sides of his neck pumping aimlessly before his body switched to lung breathing. The bright sunlight blinded him for a moment, and he was unable to make out details of the ship before he was unceremoniously dropped onto the deck. The net was pulled from him, and he found himself in the middle of loud horde of humans. They didn’t wear the bright blue uniform coats of the Navy, and there were the telling flashes of jewellery and weapons around. Alex’s heart sank, he had been captured by pirates. 

He hissed and struck out at the legs surrounding him, felling one pirate behind him with a powerful blow of his tailfin, and scratched deep gashes into the calf of another. The human cursed and kicked at him in retaliation, the scales above his ribs doing little in retaining the power behind the boot. Alex howled in pain and was taken aback at how weak and hoarse his voice sounded above water. He was about to strike back, when suddenly the crowd went quiet and parted in front of him. 

Struggling against the unfamiliar weight of his body on land Alex propped himself up on his arms and angrily glowered at the pirate walking towards him. The man moved with the unmistakable confidence of someone who knew they were in control, leaving no doubt in Alex’s mind that this was the captain. He wore a black tricorne hat upon his equally dark hair, a white ruffled shirt and dark leather pants underneath a long black coat with silver accents. A broad red sash was wrapped around his waist, and multiple narrower belts held daggers, pistols and other equipment Alex didn’t know the names of. The sabre in his shoulder holster radiated a faint hint of magic, as did some of the silver rings, necklaces and earrings he wore. Shielding spells, perhaps, as well as the general protection from magical beings that the silver brought. 

The pirate captain came to a halt in front of Alex, his polished leather boots just barely out of reach for Alex’s claws, and crouched down so that their eyes were almost on the same level. 

“Welcome aboard the _Thanatos_ ,” he said with a smile. “First of all, I have to apologise for the rough treatment, this trap and the silver-enforced net were heinous tricks, I admit, but regrettably necessary. I hope there are no hard feelings.”

His voice was cultured and pleasant, and everything about his pose and expression suggested friendliness, but Alex knew better than to let his guard down. Despite his demeanour, this man was by far the most dangerous of the humans around, the way the others had reacted to him made that quite clear. Pirate crews generally elected their captains, and not uncommonly it was the person everyone was afraid of the most that got the votes. 

When Alex didn’t reply but merely scowled, the captain continued. “Regardless of these less than ideal circumstances, I am confident that we will be able to build a mutually beneficial partnership. What do you think?”

“ _Fuck you_!” Alex hissed, triumphant to see the man’s smile drop for a moment. It was back within a couple of seconds, however.

“Now, now,” the captain chuckled. “That isn’t very polite, is it? You do realise that you’ve been caught, right? I would strongly advise you to behave yourself accordingly.” He reached out to touch Alex’s left ear fin. “There truly is no sense in fighting back anymore; in fact-“

He didn’t get any further, because Alex saw his chance and buried his needle-like teeth in the pirate’s hand. With a short yelp he tried to pull it back, but Alex held tight and bit down until the metallic taste of human blood filled his mouth. He finally let go, spit out the blood and grinned at the pirate with a satisfied smirk. The captain processed the shock faster than anticipated and didn’t hesitate to backhand Alex soundly across the face. The force of the slap knocked Alex’s head to the side, the sting of the blow itself trifling in comparison to the pain caused by the man’s many silver rings. 

Cradling his bleeding hand the captain stood up with a sigh. “Get the bracelet!” he shouted at the crew, and Alex cringed. He knew what this command meant, knew that if the pirates succeeded in this, all his hopes of fighting for his freedom would be finished. 

There was movement in the crowd and a tall, slender young man walked towards him purposefully, a black metal bracelet dangling from his hand. Alex flinched back and tried to hide his wrists under his body, but the young pirate brutally kicked him over and grabbed his arm. In the end it took six pirates to overpower Alex while he fought tooth and nails, his desperate efforts insufficient to keep them from snapping the bracelet around his right wrist. Suddenly pain shot up Alex’s arm, a terrible agony even worse than he’d remembered cruising through his body, and he could faintly hear himself screaming in the distance. 

After what felt like an eternity but couldn’t have been more than a couple of seconds, it was finally over. Alex lay gasping on the deck, fruitlessly trying to stop his muscles from shaking. A hand grabbed his chin and tilted his head up, and he was forced look into the face of the pirate captain. It was a handsome face, smooth and good-looking in a very polished sort of way, the amused half-smile playing around the lips a stark contrast to the cold expression in the dark grey eyes. 

“Again, my apologies for the rough treatment. I do hope that you understand your position now,” the captain said, squatting above Alex. “I had genuinely hoped that this wouldn’t be necessary, sadly you simply didn’t leave me another choice.” He sighed and shook his head. “Given the impressive resistance you showed against wearing the death bracelet, I clearly don’t need to explain its functionality to you. Both me and Onyx, my second in command, carry the responding controls, and while I would absolutely hate to make use of it, I also won’t hesitate to discipline you if necessary.” 

Onyx, the young pirate that had carried the bracelet, gave him a nasty grin, while the captain’s smile didn’t weaver. Alex hissed at them. 

The captain let go of Alex’s chin and clicked his tongue. “You could truly benefit from being more polite, you know. Someone might take offence. Tell me, merman, do you understand your position, or do you have to be reminded again?”

Absolutely furious, but also very much not keen on experiencing the excruciating pain of the bracelet again, Alex nodded.

The captain’s smile widened. “Good, but can you also use words?”

Alex swallowed, very tempted to shout at the man to go fuck himself again, but his entire body still ached from the effects of the death magic, and his left cheek throbbed where he’d been hit. 

“Yes,” he ground out between clenched teeth, hating himself for how small his voice sounded. 

“Very good,” the captain praised again, and it took all of Alex control to stop himself from scratching the pleased expression off his face. “Now, let me illuminate you about how this is going to work. As our newest crewmember and only merfolk at the moment, you will be tasked with scouting for potential threats and targets, as well as locating and retrieving sunken treasures. Naturally, you will be rewarded for your good work, with increasing earnings the more you prove yourself.”

Alex wasn’t particularly impressed by that, years ago he had been rewarded at first too, mostly with fruits and sometimes even with meagre pieces of the treasures he’d found, but with time the rewards had gotten more and more scarce, while the frequency of the punishments increased.

The captain continued, “I recommend you not to stray too far from the ship, as you will be expected to report to me when called. You may call me Morden, by the way, though of course ‘Captain’ will do nicely as well. Generally, I will expect honesty from you, just like I will give you in return.”

Alex snorted disdainfully; he didn’t believe for a single second that the pirate would even hesitate to lie to him if it furthered his goals. Morden raised an eyebrow at Alex’s rudeness, and Alex despised his instinct to cower – in his experience this form of disrespect could easily be reason enough to hurt him. But luckily Morden didn’t comment on it and merely threw him a warning glance. 

“Do you have any questions?” he asked. “Or do you understand what will be expected of you?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

Alex ground his teeth, staring at Morden with pure hatred in his eyes. “Yes, I understand.”

“Good boy,” Morden praised and gently patted Alex’s cheek with the pads of his fingers. Alex flinched back, but the expected pain stayed out, as Morden was careful not to let the silver rings touch his skin. 

“Well then, let’s get you back into the water before you dry out,” Morden said and rose, waving at a couple of pirates to come closer. Alex hissed when they picked him up, he hated the rough way they handled him, multiple hands grabbing on to his tail and arms, mindlessly squashing the sensitive fins. But he held still, he was too acutely aware of how completely at their mercy he was.

“I swear, if that fish scratches me again,” one of the pirates spat, but Alex didn’t find out what consequences were threatened, for he was heaved over the railing and dropped without further ado. He fell inelegantly and hit the surface with a hard splash. He breathed in deeply, water rushing through his gills, and took a moment to orient himself, before swimming down to put as much distance as possible between himself and the pirates. 

Not far from the ship its anchor had hooked itself into the stony seafloor, and Alex reluctantly settled beside it to lick his wounds. Now that the fight was over, he began to really feel the strains of the last hours. Fuming Alex picked up a small stone and threw it against the anchor, where it bounced off with a less than satisfying _clack_. He was so angry, angry at the pirates, at their captain, but mostly at himself. How had he been this stupid? He should have known that this had been a trap, looking back it was way too obvious. He had thought that he’d thoroughly learned from his past mistakes, but the long time in relative safety must have made him complacent. 

It had been over a hundred moons ago that he had finally managed to escape, and soon after that he would have never fallen for a trap like this. But he’d let his guard down lately, allowed himself to give in to his curiosity and urge to search for treasures, and now here he was, hurting and humiliated under a ship again.


	2. Chapter 2

The sudden activation of the death bracelet around his wrist snapped Alex out of his dark thoughts. It wasn’t a high enough level to hurt and merely sent mild tingles through his forearm, but he knew that would change drastically if he chose to ignore it. Although there was nothing he wanted to do more than to swim away as fast and far as possible, he pushed himself up from the stones and swam up towards the dark hull of the ship looming above. 

There was a flurry of movements atop the ship when Alex peaked his head above the surface, pirates hurrying around, climbing up the ratlines and working on hoisting the sails. The captain stood at the railing, hands clasped behind his back, and nodded at Alex in acknowledgement when he spotted his head in the waves.

“You seem to learn fast, that’s commendable,” he said with a smile, and some of the pirates around paused in their work to watch. Alex glared at them. 

Morden eventually gave up on waiting for Alex to reply. “We will be setting sail soon,” he informed him. “I trust that you will be able to keep up?”

Alex nodded. With the right wind ships could travel fast, but their speeds were never comparable to the ones that mermaids achieved, so keeping up with them during the day wouldn’t be an issue. The one advantage ships had, however, was that they were able to simply keep going and unlike Alex didn’t have to stop for rest. The crew Alex had been with many moons ago had thrown him a rope that he could tie himself to at night, and he wondered whether these pirates would think of such a thing as well.

“Very good,” Morden said. “We will head to the south-west for now. There has been word of a certain transport of gold having sunk not too far from here. I want you to find its precise location and to retrieve the valuable cargo. Understood?”

“Yes,” Alex replied, his hoarse voice barely carrying over the sounds of the sea. 

Morden caught it nonetheless and gave a curt nod. “We will talk again once you have the gold,” he said decisively. 

With that he turned away from Alex and frowned at the onlooking crewmen. “The ship won’t ready itself, so quit your staring and get your lazy asses back to work!” he called at them, the rough tone and crude words a discernible contrast to his usual polite way of talking. 

The pirates immediately scrambled to obey, and Morden stepped away from the railing, shouting orders that were met with overlaying calls of “Aye, captain!” and increased the activity on board. Alex watched on as they pulled anchor and set sails, the wind soon filling them and putting the ship into motion. Now that he had the opportunity to look at it in detail, he noticed that the dark wood of the hull and masts was almost black with a slight reddish tint. It was rather big for a pirate ship, the numerous gunports promising a strong armament, but it was by far not the biggest ship Alex had seen.

_Richard’s ship was bigger too_ , he thought, immediately trying to ban the unsolicited memories. Yet he was unable to stop comparing the two ships and their captains in his head. The _Thanatos_ , as Morden had called his ship, was made of darker wood and flew white sails, unlike the _Welsh Dragon’s_ black ones. From what he’d seen so far, Alex estimated the crew’s seize to about fifty pirates, almost even in numbers of women and men.

The ship turned away from the cluster of rocks, and Alex dived under the hull, concluding from the sparse barnacle growth that it must have been cleaned not too long ago. Coming up on the other side he now viewed the figurehead underneath the long bowsprit. It depicted a young man with black wings that spread out against the ship’s bow, sword at his side, holding an extinguished torch in his hands. Although it was carved from wood, it reminded Alex of the weathered marble statues he’d seen in old shipwrecks. 

On a flagpole at the stern of the ship flew a red, blue and white flag that Alex recognised as the same one the Navy used. It was nothing but a disguise, of course, and once the chosen prey was within range the black would be raised, or even worse, the red. He still remembered the utter dread he’d felt whenever Richard had hissed the red flag, announcing that no quarter would be given. The screams of fear and panic from the victims, their unheard pleads for mercy, the smoke, the blood, the death… all of these were things that Alex would never be able to forget.

Underneath the false flag he spotted Morden, who had taken up command position on the raised quarterdeck. Alex was certain that _Morden_ wasn’t the man’s real name, he knew that humans adopted a protective name as a rite of passage when they reached adulthood. He too had chosen a new name when he’d been with the pirates, thrilled to be taking part in such an important human custom, but hadn’t used it since. Maybe it was time to change that now.

Humans believed that there was some sort of power connected to a person’s real name, and apparently there were magical creatures on land that were able to use it. Alex himself had never seen those feared fae since they didn’t live close to the ocean, but from what he’d heard he knew that he wouldn’t want to meet them anyways. 

Morden stood tall next to the ship’s wheel, surveying the activity on deck, an unshakable aura of confidence around him. Not even Richard had radiated this kind of power and authority, but then again he hadn’t actually been a remarkable looking human. He had been rather plain and forgettable – until he started to speak. It had been Richard’s voice that had enthralled Alex all those moons ago, making promises and just sounding so very reasonable. But Alex knew better now than to fall for a human’s sweet words ever again, and he would never make the mistake to trust this Morden.

~~~

True to the captain’s word Alex soon began to feel the call of the treasure ahead. The waters had started to become deeper as he followed the pirate ship, every flap of his fin bringing him further away from his home than he’d been in years. He wondered what Luna would think when he didn’t return to the reef. When would she start to worry? Would she deduce correctly that he’d been captured by humans? Or would she think that he’d died in the storm or had been eaten by a sea monster? Maybe she would even think that he’d gotten cold fins and left her to save himself from her supposed curse?

Alex felt a pang at that thought, he really hoped that Luna knew him enough by now to know that he wouldn’t abandon her like this. But whatever she might think, everything would be alright as long as she didn’t put it in her head to come searching for him. That he had been caught by the pirates was bad enough, but he’d never be able to forgive himself if Luna got captured as well because of him. Captured, or worse.

_A beautiful mermaid, red blood splattering her light green scales, the harpoon impaling her looking obscenely big in her slender chest, shocked expression on her face turning into one of betrayal…_

Alex quickly shook his head, trying to banish the image that had burned itself into his memory a long time ago. Guilt rushed through him, filling his mouth with the taste of bile, and he swallowed it down forcefully. He didn’t have the time to deal with this right now, after all he had a sunken treasure to find. It wasn’t that he had any true desire to find anything for these pirates, but with the death bracelet around his wrist he simply didn’t have another choice. And despite how tempting it was to simply pretend that the treasure wasn’t there anymore, he had learned the hard way that such lies would come to cost him dearly. 

When he finally spotted the shipwreck deep down on the sandy seafloor, the call of the treasure had gotten so strong that he felt it in his bones. He jumped up high above the waves to signal to the pirates that they had reached their destination, and Morden seemed to understand without words as he immediately ordered his crew to reef the sails and ready a lifeboat. Alex wasn’t entirely sure what the gestures he made to him meant, but he understood enough to know that the captain wanted him to retrieve the gold.

The call of the treasure got stronger the closer he got to the seafloor, and soon he wasn’t sure whether he’d be able to turn away if he’d wanted to. The sight of the wreck sent thrills of excitement through him, and he hated that despite being forced to do this by the pirates, he was still looking forward to exploring the ship and finding its treasure. There was a simple reason for why humans employed merfolk for these kinds of jobs, and it was that they were basically made for them. 

Whatever had caused this ship to sink must have been rather forceful, because its parts lay strewn in a radius far bigger than the length of a grown humpback whale. Unable to suppress his excitement any longer, Alex began to explore the wreckage. He quickly located the cargo of interest amidst a cast of small crabs that was feasting on the food storage. The chests were smaller than he had anticipated, but the pull he felt from them promised an impressive content within. Regretting that he wasn’t able to take this treasure for himself, he started to transport the chests one by one up to where the pirates were waiting. 

They had lowered a small lifeboat down to the surface of the water, where it had been left secured to the davit and kept close to the side of the tall ship. Alex handed the chests of gold to the captain, who after confirming their precious contents passed them on to be pulled up onto the deck. Morden’s words of praise at each prize Alex delivered felt nothing but condescending to him, and he ignored them together with the hoots and cheers from the crew. 

“This is the last one?” Morden asked when Alex didn’t dive away again after handing him the heavy chest. 

“Yes.”

“Well done,” Morden praised. “Very well done indeed. I have to admit, your behaviour earlier today left me a bit worried about your abilities to cooperate, so I am very glad you proved them wrong.” 

Alex flushed and ground his teeth, the man’s satisfied expression made him want nothing more than to show him that he wouldn’t just roll over and be their tamed fish, but the lasting ache in his body reminded him too well of the agony the death bracelet could cause. _It’s too soon_ , Alex told himself, _just let him think he’s won for a while and he’ll get complacent. Then you’ll take your chance._

“You truly aren’t very talkative, are you?” Morden said with a crooked smile. Alex didn’t reply and merely imagined what it would feel like scratch out the pirate’s triumphant eyes, an action that was sadly prevented by the protective silver jewellery. The hand he had bitten earlier was wrapped tightly in white bandages, and Alex had noticed that he had favoured it while handling the heavy chests of gold.

Morden sighed. “Anyways, I am very pleased with your overall performance today. You truly earned yourself a treat.” With that he pulled out a small apple from one of his coat pockets and held it out in offering. Alex stared at it. 

It was well known that merfolk adored all kinds of sugary food, even more so than humans, because their natural diet barely contained any of it. The most common source were fruits, but even they found their way into the ocean only very rarely, creating an opportunity for humans to lure and manipulate merfolk with the highly coveted delicacies. Alex was humiliated at receiving such a typical merfolk reward, it made him feel like a trained seal getting treats for performing a trick. But what he hated even more was how much he wanted that apple.

“This is not a trick, I promise. You really earned it,” Morden said, entirely misreading the reason behind Alex’s hesitation. “Tell you what, if you disclose your name, I’ll even cut it for you.”

The teasing undertone in Morden’s voice pushed Alex over the edge entirely. 

“I’m not a pet!” he hissed angrily and hit the apple out of Morden’s hand. It fell into the water with a splash, and Alex felt triumphant at the captain’s surprised expression, diving away before he was able to retaliate. Swimming down he half expected the death bracelet to punish him for his renewed rudeness, but nothing happened.

~~~

Nightfall came as sudden and quickly as it always did, leaving the ship adrift under the brilliant stars as the pirates celebrated their success. Alex heard their loud laughter and even some music, reminding him of both good and bad times alike. He had caught himself some fish for dinner and further explored the shipwreck, discovering all sorts of curios objects, some of which he could only guess the uses of. A long time ago he had freely asked the pirates about all the human things that fascinated him, until their amusement at his excitement had turned more and more into cruel mockery of his ignorance.

While fiddling with a bottle that he was unable to open, he had spotted the previously refused apple floating above. Unable to resist the temptation any longer he had shot up to the surface and grabbed it, hoping from the bottom of his heart that none of the pirates had seen him. Settling next to the sunken ship’s figurehead he bit into the sweet fruit, savouring its splendid taste. However he quickly found himself frustrated at the shape and texture, as his teeth were horribly unsuited for this kind of food. They were sharp and narrow, perfect for holding on to slippery fish and ripping them apart, but unable to bite out chunks and chew the apple. 

He hadn’t had one of these in ages and so he miserably nibbled at it, part of him secretly wishing he’d taken Morden up on his offer of cutting it for him. Just why had he asked for his name in return? Alex didn’t understand what he needed it for, after all the rest of his crew didn’t seem to have a problem with simply calling him “the fish”. In general he wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the handsome captain. He had insidiously caught him and forced him to obey with the use of a death bracelet, but at the same time had talked politely to him and didn’t seem to harbour a grudge for the bite. He’d also used the death bracelet a lot less liberally than Alex would have expected, but that could still very much change. Or maybe he preferred more personal ways of torture.

Tobruk had loved to exploit Alex’s sensitivity to silver by pressing coins against his skin and laughed as he whimpered in pain, while other members of the crew had enjoyed it greatly to pull him from the water and watch the way he panicked as his skin began to dry out and burn in the sun. Alex swallowed and listlessly dropped the apple; his appetite was thoroughly spoiled. He truly didn’t want to stay around to find out what kinds of punishments Morden would come up with. And if everything went as planned, he wouldn’t have to.

Filled with a new vigour he rummaged for the sharp nail he’d pulled from a plank earlier and turned to examine the death bracelet on his wrist. It looked very similar to the one Richard had used, if maybe a bit thicker and wider. Back then it had taken him ages to figure out how to break it, but now it shouldn’t take too long, especially not with the tool he’d found. Grinning confidently to himself he set to work.


	3. Chapter 3

Trying to focus solely on the rhythm of his swimming and the task ahead, Alex did his best to ignore the burning pain around his right wrist. He had been so confident in his abilities to break the death bracelet that he hadn’t foreseen the pirates’ insidiousness – the core of the bracelet was made from solid silver. All that his efforts with the nail had done was scratching off the protective layer around it, bringing the irritant metal in direct contact with his sensitive skin, and rendering all his hopes of breaking the lock impossible. Of course it made sense that these pirates were using an updated model to the one Richard had used, after all a long time had passed since then, but Alex still felt bitter at the bad luck.

He had been devastated to see all his hopes of escape shattered so suddenly, especially when the tingling activation demonstrated that the bracelet still worked faultlessly despite the chipped coating. Luckily, he had managed to hide his inflamed wrist underwater and controlled his pained expression for the duration of their conversation, so that Morden didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. Alex didn’t know what exactly would happen if the captain found out that he had tried to break the bracelet, but he was quite sure that it would be incredibly painful. 

The mission he had been given was to swim ahead to the nearby trading route and scout for a potential target; clearly the pirates were testing his aptitude for all the different jobs they might use him for. Back with Richard these kind of missions had been his favourite, because they meant that he got away from the ship and its inhabitants at least for a little while. Right now he could also almost imagine himself to be free again, speeding through the waves alone and without obligations – if only it weren’t for the throbbing pain in his wrist.

Morden’s intel on the trading route plans had turned out to be rather accurate, as it hadn’t taken Alex too long to find a promising looking target. Very careful not to be spotted by the sailors he had inspected the medium-sized ship from all sides and tried his best to imprint its features into his memory. From experience he knew that a ship like this wouldn’t have been too difficult for Richard to take, but so far he hadn’t seen the _Thanatos_ in a fight and could therefore hope that it would prove too much for them. Although he generally didn’t like to be anywhere near sea battles, he was quite curious to see how this one would play out.

~~~

“You were faster than I expected, I am quite pleased,” Morden said with a smile, and Alex couldn’t decide whether it was just friendly or condescending. “Now, please do tell me the name of this ship you found.”

Instead of lowering a lifeboat to the water again, Morden was sitting on a rope ladder hanging down the side of the ship, and Alex couldn’t help but be impressed at his apparent lack of fear despite being so close to the waves. He was holding on to the bottom of the ladder so he didn’t have to swim to keep up with the ship while giving his report, and it would have been an easy feat for him to dislodge the pirate from his seat. Alex wondered whether he could swim. He was almost disappointed to see that the hand he had bitten at their first meeting had been healed with magic, as the bandaging had disappeared and not a trace of the wound remained. 

“How am I supposed to know that?” Alex replied annoyed. 

“Well, surely it was written at the bow of the ship, wasn’t it?”

Alex shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

“So?” Morden asked, the growing irritation in his voice hardly noticeable.

“So what?” 

Morden’s face darkened and he set on to reply, when suddenly understanding dawned on his face. “You can’t read,” he noted.

“No, of course I can’t fucking read your stupid signs!” Alex snapped back.

“Language, please,” Morden chided. “I should teach you to read, but sadly we don't have the time.” He sighed. “Ah well, not the matter. This will simply take up a bit more of our time, then.” 

He then proceeded to question Alex in detail about the ship, how big it was, what kind of rigging it had, how many guns, what its figurehead looked like, how many sailors he had seen abroad, and many more until he confidently declared it to be the _Pathfinder_ , a trading brig he had seen before.

“Just so you won’t be disappointed and blame me later, I didn’t really sense any treasures on the ship,” Alex said. Sensing treasures behinds a barrier like the hull of a ship was a lot harder than those directly in the water, but in this case he was quite sure that the selected target wasn’t carrying much precious stones or metals. 

“There are other things valuable than gold and jewels, some even more valuable than those,” Morden replied. “Spices, for example. Fabrics, magical items, exotic animals… and for us personally also mundane things like food, water, clothes and medical supplies. Since the _Pathfinder_ is probably coming from the mainland, it will most likely carry rare pelts and – what is wrong with your wrist?”

Alex jumped and immediately plunged his right hand back into the water, suddenly feeling his heart beating in his throat. Somehow he had been so distracted by Morden’s explanations that he had accidentally let his injured arm drift to the surface. 

“Nothing,” he replied too quickly. “What else are you expecting on the ship?” 

Sadly, Morden didn’t fall for Alex’s attempt to distract him. “Do not lie to me,” he said sternly. “Show me your hand.”

Almost paralysed by fear Alex shook his head. Breathing above the water was much harder all of a sudden, and he knew he had fucked up. Just why hadn’t his premonition warned him of the danger? He didn’t understand, and it was even more strange that it didn’t even register the looming threat at the very moment. 

“Stop this and show me your hand right now,” Morden ordered, all the previous friendliness drained from his voice and only cold steel remained. 

Alex swallowed, he knew that the captain would be angry with him once he saw what he had done, but if he continued to disobey, things surely wouldn’t get any better. Well aware that he would have to suffer for this no matter what he did, he slowly lifted his right hand above the waves. Unwilling to look at Morden he waited for the outburst, but instead of shouting at him or forgoing all talk and just zapping him with the bracelet right away, Morden sighed.

“You tried to break the death bracelet, didn’t you? Silly thing.” He shook his head and tutted. “Just look at how bad that wrist looks, so red and inflamed, it must hurt a lot. Poor silly thing.” 

Surprised Alex looked up, he didn’t appreciate the patronising tone one bit, but at the same time he felt a glimmer of hope. 

“Wait here,” Morden said and climbed back up on deck, where Alex heard him shout commands. A few minutes later Morden descended the ladder again, and Alex felt his stomach drop at the sight of the second death bracelet in his hands. Did he intend to hurt him even more with two bracelets at once? Despite his fear Alex didn’t dare not to comply when Morden locked the unscathed bracelet around his left wrist, and his confusion reached a new height when Morden took the old one off.

“I can only encourage you to leave this one intact,” he reprimanded. “You shouldn’t hurt yourself like this again, especially since we unfortunately don’t possess an unlimited amount of death bracelets.”

The underlying message was clear to Alex; this time Morden would forgive him for trying to break the bracelet, but if he did it again, he would have to live with the silver.

“Is that understood?” Morden asked.

“Yes,” Alex said with clenched teeth, feeling relieved, angry and embarrassed at the same time. “I will leave this one intact.”

Morden smiled. “Good boy.” He reached inside his coat and took out a small tin. Alex watched warily as Morden unscrewed the lid, the tin’s contents emitted a faint scent of flowers and the familiar tingle of magic. Morden then dipped two fingers into the tin and carefully began to spread the salve on Alex’s inflamed skin. The effect was almost instantaneously, the cool substance immediately soothed the burning sensation and reduced the sharp pain to a low ache. 

“Thank you,” Alex mumbled once Morden had finished and tucked the tin back inside his coat pocket. He was so confused. He resented the pirate for putting the death bracelet on him, just like Richard, but then instead of punishing him for breaking it, he had taken it off and even put salve on his wound, which Richard would have never done. This kindness wasn’t something he would have expected from a pirate captain. Alex forcefully shook his head, he refused to be grateful to the man for not being the worst person he could possibly be. And besides, he had probably only done it so that Alex could work better. 

“You are welcome,” Morden replied. “Don’t come too close to the ships in case there is a battle, but also don’t stray too far. We will speak again after we have taken the _Pathfinder_.”

~~~

The attack happened in the early hours of the morning. Under the cover of darkness the pirates sneaked up on their unsuspecting prey, silently crossing the distance between the two ships in small rowboats, armed to the teeth. They scaled the ship with grappling hooks as quietly as possible, so when the surprised guards finally sounded the alarm it was already too late. The ensuing battle was short and violent, Morden’s crew worked fast and efficiently to supress the resistance in record time.

From his position over a ship length away from the happenings Alex didn’t see the fight in great detail, but he couldn’t help but be impressed with Morden’s effective strategy. Given the _Pathfinder’s_ lager seize and higher number of cannons in comparison to the _Thanatos_ , the risk of the merchant crew deciding to fight instead of surrendering when openly confronted with the pirates had been high. Since artillery battles always carried the danger of causing sever damages to the ships, no matter which side won, Morden had simply decided to eliminate that possibility.

In the light of the new day the pirates positioned the two ships close to each other and connected them with tows and gangplanks, so that they were able to safely transport the stolen cargo onto the _Thanatos_ , while the subdued survivors of the _Pathfinder’s_ crew helplessly looked on. Now that the threat was definitely over Alex dared to swim a lot closer and watched the procession of pirates carrying their loot across the narrow walkways. In accordance with his expectation there didn’t seem to be any treasures of interest to him, but merely the suspected pelts and fabrics, as well as large quantities of food. Morden was the last person to return back to the _Thanatos_ and turned around halfway across the gangway to address the merchant crew.

“Gentlemen, I would like to thank all of you for your cooperation,” he said and bowed. “I wish you a pleasant continuation of your journey.” He tipped his hat to them with a smile and left.

Quickly the connections between the two ships were separated, the anchor lifted, and the _Thanatos_ set sails, leaving the plundered merchant vessel behind with a significantly larger cargo than before.

Alex wasn’t sure what to feel about the raid. On the one hand he didn’t appreciate the way the pirates had used him to locate and scout their prey, and he felt sorry for the sailors that had been killed in the fight, but on the other he had been positively surprised at how few causalities there had been. Morden’s crew had overwhelmed their opponents with brute force before a drawn-out fight had even started, and afterwards seemed satisfied with shackling their prisoners for the duration of the raid instead of murdering everyone. Also, he personally didn’t really care about humans robbing each other. 

Later that day, when all loot had been stored away and the excitement had died down, the new death bracelet sent its tingling signal through Alex’s forearm. This time Alex found Morden sitting in a lifeboat that was still safely secured to the davit again, and he gave Alex a nod in greeting when he spotted the merman’s head in the waves.

“The information you provided was integral to the easy success of this operation,” Morden said as Alex paddled closer to the boat. “With that you have definitely earned a reward.” 

Alex narrowed his eyes when Morden offered him another apple, he was unable to ignore the nagging humiliation of being treated like a trained animal and remembered his struggles with eating the sweet fruit well. In a way he was surprised that the captain was even making him this offer again, after all he had rejected it quite rudely before.

Morden cleared his throat. “I would also like to clarify that this is not meant in a demeaning way. Of course you aren’t a ‘pet’, as you disputed last time, but a member of my crew. As such you are entitled to a share of the spoils, and for now that will be disbursed in this way.” 

Alex snorted; he didn’t believe a word of what Morden had just said. Surely the captain didn’t reward the other crew members with food for doing their jobs, so equating him to them was ridiculous. Besides, he hadn’t even signed the Articles of Agreement. _What, you actually thought you were a part of the crew?_ , Tobruk’s voice sneered in his head, _How stupid! You’re just a silly fish, you could never be a crewmate!_

“Come on, take it,” Morden encouraged and held the apple out further. “Though if you tell me your name, I’ll cut it for you.”

Swallowing uncertainly Alex regarded the apple. It was humiliating, yes, but at the same time he couldn’t deny that he genuinely wanted it. He didn’t understand why Morden was giving him a second chance with the same offer, and a part of him wanted to just slap the fruit out of his hand again, but that action didn’t seem to have bothered Morden in any way the last time. All it had done was deprive Alex of something nice, and he was just so tired. He had tried everything to break the death bracelet and escape, but it hadn’t worked, and now he was condemned to stay with the pirates for the foreseeable future. With how awful everything was, wasn’t he allowed to at least enjoy the meagre benefits his situation brought?

“Verus,” Alex said eventually. “My name is Verus.”

Morden’s smile widened. “Thank you, Verus,” he said and pulled a small knife from his belt, which he used to cut a thin slice out of the apple. He then held it out between the blade of the knife and his thumb. Careful not to touch either Alex took it from him and made quick work of devouring it. He closed his eyes, the taste was divine, a perfect mix of sweet and sour, and he both loved and hated how Morden had cut it just thin enough.

“Verus – that doesn’t sound like a merfolk name. It’s a protective name, right?” Morden asked. 

For a split-second Alex considered lying, but then decided that it wasn’t worth it.

“Yes.”

“What is your given name, then?”

Incredulous Alex stared at him. He had learned enough about human culture to know that asking for a person’s given name was considered very rude, and although he himself didn’t really conscribe to those norms at all, he could still use them to his advantage. Luckily, Morden seemed to realise that despite Alex being merfolk his question had been a faux-pas, and he pedalled back. 

“Of course, I apologise,” Morden appeased and handed Alex another slice of the apple. 

“Where are you from?” he asked next, clearly intending to continue exchanging fruit for answers.

“Shallow sea and reefs,” Alex replied vaguely, he most certainly wouldn’t tell the pirates where they could find Luna, nor the place he’d grown up at. 

“A bit more precise, please?” 

Alex huffed. “You humans wouldn’t even know the true names, and I don’t know your stupid ones.”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to be more mindful of your manners,” Morden said, and despite the unwavering smile and the calm tone Alex felt a shiver run over his scales. The captain acted friendly, but Alex knew better than to forget how very dangerous he was. 

“How old are you?” Morden continued his questioning when Alex stayed silent. “I have to admit, judging non-human ages isn’t easy for me.”

This seemed like a harmless question. “About three hundred,” Alex replied truthfully. Morden looked at him surprised and almost forgot to give Alex the next apple slice, but he quickly snatched it from the pirate’s fingers. 

“Three hundred?” Morden echoed in disbelief. “Wait – you don’t mean years, do you?”

“Nope,” Alex said and held out his hand to receive the payment for the answer he’d given. “Years are stupid, they don’t make any sense.”

“What else do you count in?” Morden asked and readily handed over another piece of the apple, preparing to cut the next one.

“Moons, obviously,” Alex replied while chomping on the slice. 

“Obviously,” Morden said dryly. “I am about… three hundred sixty moons, then.” 

Alex nodded; he was a little confused that Morden would share personal information with him so freely. 

“Years in fact do make sense, but I understand why they would seem unimportant compared to months – moons – to you,” Morden said. “As a sea-dwelling creature the moon’s impact on the tides is a lot more important to you than the rotation of the sun and the stars, and without concise seasons so close to the equator there truly is no reason for you to consider them.”

“What are seasons?” Alex asked without thinking as he took another piece of the apple. Quickly, he realised his mistake and froze. From the way Morden had talked about it, he clearly didn’t consider ‘seasons’ a novel word and would now make fun of Alex for asking such a stupid question. 

“Seasons are a way to divide a year into parts, or to sum up multiple moons, by changes of different things, but mostly the weather,” Morden explained. “Here the weather is very similar all the time, but where I’m from there’s four quite different seasons.”

Wide-eyed Alex looked at Morden, he had been expecting all kinds of taunts about his ignorance, but not to get an actual explanation. He took the next slice Morden offered, although it had been him who’d answered and not Alex, and cautiously asked, “How are they different?” 

“Well, first of all there’s summer where it’s warm, though usually not as warm as here,” Morden said, cutting another piece from the apple. “Then in autumn it gets colder, even rainier and windy, and then there’s winter…”


	4. Chapter 4

“What, did you think the seabed was just sandy and flat everywhere?” Alex asked, his ear fins twitching in amusement.

“I suppose,” Morden replied with an almost self-conscious smile. “I take it that this is not all there is?”

“Of course not!” Alex said. “There’s also ridges and valleys, coral reefs and deep trenches,…” He went on talking about all the different formations on the bottom of the sea, immensely enjoying to be the one with the superior knowledge, while Morden listened with interest, asked questions and handed him freshly peeled, bite-sized pieces of genip from time to time. 

The first time Alex had accepted fruit from the pirate captain it had taken a while for their conversation to become more relaxed, as Alex had been constantly waiting for the moment where Morden would inevitably lose patience with his questions and start mocking him. But so far it hadn’t come, Morden didn’t seem to mind answering all of them, and so Alex’s hesitation hadn’t lasted long when he’d offered him fruits again in reward for finding another treasure. They had talked about seasons and weather some more, although Alex still wasn’t sure if water could actually become solid in the cold, or if Morden was just messing with him. 

This time he was being rewarded with juicy, bittersweet genip for leading the pirates to another merchant ship. To his great disappointment, the significantly larger crew hadn’t even tried to fight but had surrendered the moment the _Thanatos_ dropped the false flag and hissed the black. From Morden’s demeanour this wasn’t a rare thing by far, once again visualising to Alex how very dangerous this particular pirate crew had to be if they were proceeded by such a strong reputation. 

Richard’s targets had usually chosen to surrender as well, although that hadn’t necessarily stopped his crew from killing them anyways. Without survivors, no-one would be able to give information about the _Welsh Dragon’s_ forces and whereabouts to the Navy, which had suited Richard just fine as had been a rather secretive and secluded person. In contrast, Morden didn’t seem to mind leaving people behind that would recount the attack and spread the tale, taking the risk of being prosecuted by the Navy in favour of strengthening his reputation. Alex could only hope that this admittedly very effective strategy would eventually lead to his downfall.

“By the way, where are we headed to right now?” Alex asked casually, successfully masking his growing apprehension. After spending days in to him rather unknown waters, they had now returned to an area he knew quite well, and he didn’t like the course they had set one bit.

“A very remote group of small islands to the east,” Morden replied. “According to our new recruits from the trading ship, one of them potentially saw merfolk while passing nearby. Apparently, no-one believed them, but we are well-situated enough to make a detour.” 

Alex’s blood ran cold. “Really?” he asked, trying his best not to stutter. “That seems odd – I know that place, it’s very ugly… I don’t think any merfolk would stay there, they were probably just passing by and are long gone by now.”

He looked up at Morden, hoping that he wouldn’t catch his lie and that it would be enough to deter him from proceeding on this course. No matter what happened, Alex knew that he couldn’t let the pirates go anywhere near the place he’d called home for the last hundred moons – the place where Luna would be. 

It was odd that a sailor had seen her, she usually avoided leaving the safety of the reef… His fins fluttered when he realised that she had probably only swum out so far to search for him. He wondered what the pirates would do with her once they found her. Would they simply force her into service, like they had done with him, or did Morden have an agenda similar to Richard’s? Alex swallowed, he had to stop the pirates from finding Luna. Even though he wasn’t leading them anywhere now, any death would be just as much his fault as last time. 

“Well, I’m not interested in the merfolk themselves, more in the possibilities of them hiding treasures there,” Morden said. He chuckled when Alex looked at him with surprise. “What, did you think I was looking to replace you? Don’t worry, Verus, you have shown yourself to be quite skilled and competent, I am more than pleased. Although you could still work on improving your manners, of course.” He smirked at him, and Alex forced a smile, feeling almost lightheaded from the rising hope.

“Oh, that’s a smart thought. As I said, that place isn’t one merfolk would go to for fun, so it’s quite likely that they hid a treasure there,” Alex said, hoping that the flattery would help him to convince the captain. “I’ll go search for it, and if I find something, I will bring it back. Actually, you don’t need to go there with the ship; if I remember correctly, there’s lots of submersed rocks and shoals, so it’d be quite dangerous.”

“Hmm.” Morden regarded him suspiciously. “You are trying to earn more rewards, aren’t you?”

Alex lowered his eyes and nodded, swallowing his pride as he tried to portray the image of an embarrassed but eager merman. 

Morden smiled. “Very well, you will swim ahead and find the treasure. I’ll call you when we pass by the archipelago.”

~~~

Their last exchange had been humiliating to Alex, he hated that the pirate now thought he was tame enough that he wanted to find treasures for them out of his free will in exchange for treats, but his boiling anger was far overshadowed by the relief and anticipation cursing through his veins. He sped through the waves, holding on tightly to the roughspun sack Morden had given him to transport the treasure in, and ignored the fatigue that had been building over the last couple of days.

As Alex had expected, the pirates had thrown him a rope that he could tie himself to for sleeping, and it was about as comfortable as it sounds. He’d always hated this sleeping accommodation for being degrading, but this time it was genuinely painful because the _Thanatos_ was significantly faster than the _Welsh Dragon_ had been. Tying the rope to his arms had almost resulted in his shoulder getting pulled, and the alternative around his chest worked mediocrely for a few nights but had now started to damage his scales and left bruises. Short, his sleep hadn’t been the best lately.

But none of that mattered right now, he was going _home_. Soon he saw the small cluster of islands ahead, and it didn’t take long until he spotted the outspread coral reef in their midst. Unable to contain his joy Alex jumped into the air, he had never been this happy to return to this place that had felt almost confining at times. A swarm of brightly orange fish scattered in all directions as he entered the beautiful reef, and his gills fluttered with the deep breath he took as he suddenly found himself surrounded by colours and life. He smiled to himself and continued to swim through the tall corals, examining things that had changed in his absence and taking the time to greet the sea turtles and nursery sharks that passed his way. Finally, he found her resting in her favourite barrel sponge. 

Luna was a young mermaid with fair skin, blue eyes and light brown hair, which she liked to pin up with pieces of coral and sea stars. Her upper body stood out for its lack of scales, but the part that truly attracted attention was her tail: instead of the usual scaly fish tail with fins, her waist merged into the silvery-grey bell of a jelly fish with long, slender tentacles. Alex had never heard of merfolk like this before he met her. According to her, it was a curse that ran in her family, and she had been unlucky enough to hatch as its newest victim. 

In the beginning it hadn’t been much of an issue; sure, she looked different from the other larvae and had to develop her own way of swimming, but her parents and their pod had accepted it. It only became a problem when she grew up and the toxicity of her venom increased, putting everyone who got too close to her in acute danger as she was unable to control her trailing tentacles. Scared of accidentally causing the death of the people she loved, she had swum away and wandered the seas on her own, until she had taken shelter in Alex’s reef some moons ago. 

At first, she hadn’t intended to stay long, amazed that Alex hadn’t been too scared of her curse to allow her close, but soon a day had turned into three, then into moons, until she had eventually agreed on staying permanently. The archipelago was remote, and the dense reefs offshore granted protection, its abundant fish life ensuring a stable food source. But even more importantly, Alex and Luna had become friends. 

“Alex!” she called when she spotted him and pushed herself out of the sponge. “You’re back!” 

“Hi, Luna.” Smiling Alex crossed the distance between them, making sure to stay out of reach for her overeager tentacles. 

“Where were you?” she asked. “You were gone for so long, I got really worried and went to look, but I couldn’t find you anywhere! I almost thought one of those nasty sea monsters got you; where were you so long? Did you at least find something good?” She curiously eyed the sack Alex held.

“I’m afraid not,” he replied curtly. “I’m sorry you were worried, I didn’t mean to stay away this long. Come, let’s go to Arachne, I don’t have much time.”

Luna frowned. “What do you mean, you don’t have much time? Alex, what’s going on? Why do you have this sack, and what the hell is this bracelet – oh.” She suddenly stopped when realisation hit her. 

“Is it – it’s one of those death bracelets, isn’t it?” she asked carefully, and Alex nodded, unable to meet her eyes. The gills at the sides of her neck fluttered as she gasped. “Navy or pirates?”

“Pirates,” he admitted. “They set a trap, and I was stupid enough to fall for it.” 

“What happened?” 

Alex’s tail swished agitatedly. “I’ll tell you everything, but how about we go to Arachne first, so I won’t have to say everything twice?”

Curiosity and worry still etched into her face, Luna followed Alex over the edge of the reef.

~~~

Arachne lived in a cave at the bottom of the tall coral reef, its entrance looking out over the gently sloped lagoon and the grazing manatee in the seaweed meadow. After a dark tunnel only illuminated by blue glowing spheres in the corners, the cave opened into a bright oval chamber, light reflecting off the numerous shining metals and glittering gems that were spread around the room. Arachne was the best jeweller Alex knew, no-one else could rework human items and integrate raw materials to fit merfolk as beautifully and elegantly as she did. She was Alex’s oldest friend, who had taken him in after he’d escaped from Richard and helped him to re-establish himself.

“Arachne, Alex is back!” Luna called into the room. 

Clattering noises sounded from one of the tunnels leading further into the rock, and a few moments later a giant spider crab emerged from it into the bright chamber. Arachne had eight long legs and a pair of pincers, that she could use almost like hands, and was about the size of a small beaked whale.

“Alex, dear,” she greeted him, her black exoskeleton shimmering metallic blue in the reflecting lights. “It’s good to see you again.”

“It’s good to be back too,” Alex said and swam closer between her long legs so she could see him better. 

“You had us quite worried; Luna even put the reef fish in perturbation with her restless pacing,” Arachne said. “What kept you away so long?”

Steeling himself Alex took a deep breath and told his friends about what had happened. He began with the storm that had lowered his guard, the way he had swum right into a trap, the pirates that had pulled him onto their ship, the jobs he’d been forced to do for them, his unsuccessful escape attempt and the reason for why he was able to visit them now.

“Oh, Alex,” Arachne sighed once he had finished his tale. “Again?”

Alex’s fins flared uncomfortably. “I know… Just this time I can’t get the bracelet off. Do you think you could…?”

“Hmm, let me see.” 

Alex held out his arm to her, and she carefully examined the dark bracelet around his wrist with her eyes and pincers. She eventually let go, and Alex’s heart sank when he heard the clicking mandible sound he’d begun to associate with negation. 

“I’m sorry, Alex, but I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do,” she said apologetically. 

“It’s alright… I hadn’t really expected it anyways.” This was only partially true, he hadn’t actively thought about it, but the undercurrent of hope that Arachne would manage to free him had been there. “I have to get some of my treasure so I can bring it to the captain once he calls.”

“What, no way!” Luna protested, her jelly fish bell pulsating agitatedly. “You can’t go back to them!”

“I don’t have a choice, Luna. If I don’t come back when he calls me, the death bracelet will steadily increase intensity until it kills me. And even worse, Morden might decide to have a look around here as well. They have me, fine, but I won’t ever let them get to you.”

“You told me about what those pirates did to you last time; how they insulted and humiliated you, and how they enjoyed hurting you for fun! How they almost left you on an island once as punishment!” Luna shook her head intently. “You say you can’t let them get to me, but I can’t let any of this happen to you again either.”

Alex squirmed. “It hasn’t been like that so far, though. Morden may be a psychopathic asshole, but he isn’t a bad boss as long as I don’t challenge his authority. And I don’t think the rest of the crew is even allowed to interact with me.” He tried to give Luna an encouraging smile. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

Luna didn’t look one bit convinced. “That might change though,” she pointed out.

“I know. That’s why I definitely won’t give up, I’ll try everything I can to escape once the time is right. And I’d appreciated if you could look into how we can break this damned bracelet?” He looked up at Arachne. 

“Of course, I will do what I can,” she promised. “I hope you will be able to visit again soon.”

Alex’s fins deflated; he knew that it could be many moons until the pirates returned into this part of the sea – if they did at all. 

“Me too,” he said, forcing himself to smile for Luna’s sake. “I’ll be fine.”

~~~

The _Thanatos_ truly was a very fast ship, and so Alex only just managed to collect a sizable part of his own treasure hoard before the tingling signal in his forearm called him back. The flaps of his fin felt a lot heavier than they had on the way to the archipelago, despite all the reasoning he’d done earlier, it was incredibly hard to leave the reef behind and swim back to the pirates. He signalled his return to them by jumping high above the waves, and it didn’t take long until they lowered the familiar lifeboat down to sea-level.

“Did you find something?” Morden asked when Alex swam up to him, curiously trying to catch a glimpse of the sack he pulled after him.

“Yes.” 

Morden smiled. “Give it to me,” he ordered, stretching out his hand. 

Alex looked at his arm, realising how easy it would be to grab the pirate around the wrist and pull him into the ocean. He wondered whether Morden would struggle too, first trying to hit him as the panic grew, later just flailing aimlessly until the movements got weaker and weaker before they stopped altogether… Eyes and mouth open wide in shock, as the corpse drifted away…

Alex pulled air deeply into his lungs to rid himself of those thoughts, uncomfortably mixed with memories. It wouldn’t amount to anything, not as long as the captain’s second in command, Onyx, also held one of the controls to the death bracelet. Obediently he handed the sack over, ignoring the pain giving up parts of his own treasure caused.

_It has to be,_ he reminded himself sternly. _If Morden is happy, he won’t question the lies I told him._

“Good work, Verus,” Morden praised after he’d confirmed the precious contents of the sack and tied it to a rope to be pulled up on deck. The pirates that had assembled at the railing let out a triumphant cheer when they saw the jewels and gold coins. 

“Now, concerning your reward – “ Morden pulled an orange, oval fruit of the size of his hand from a coat pocket and showed it to Alex. 

“What’s that?” he asked, he hadn’t seen this kind of fruit before and was intrigued by the leathery peel, which smelled aromatic but not necessarily in a delicious way.

“A mango,” Morden explained. “They come from the East Indies but are now grown on a few islands around here as well. The last ship we raided had a few of them, and I thought that you might like to try something new.” 

“Thank you,” Alex said with surprise, he wouldn’t have expected Morden to think about what he might enjoy, much less to actually take something from a ship just for him. 

“You’re welcome.” 

Alex watched Morden peel the mango with fascination, the pulp was bright yellow and smelled amazing. Morden cut off a small piece, dripping with juice, and handed it to Alex, who took it carefully. He slowly tried a bite and was so overtaken with the explosion of flavour on his tongue that he couldn’t hold back the joyful chirp from his throat. Immediately self-conscious he glanced up at Morden, expecting him to mock the embarrassingly animalic sound he’d made. Miraculously, Morden merely chuckled quietly and handed him another piece.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I had a weekly updating schedule for _Found_? Those were the good times.

Alex cursed; he should have known that with his kind of luck this had been bound to happen. And all just because he hadn’t been able to resist the temptation of some rest. He hadn’t been sleeping well, because the _Thanatos’_ speed was simply too high for him to comfortably tie himself to the tow the pirates had thrown him. At first he had tried to just grit his teeth and bear the bruises silently, but eventually the damaged scales and chafed skin on his chest had become too painful to continue aggravating them every night.

Telling the captain about his issues hadn’t been an option either, he knew well enough that pirates immediately exploited any kind of weakness they found. Besides, even if he didn’t use it against him somehow, Morden surely wouldn’t care and at most make fun of him. At loss for other options Alex had begun to grab every opportunity of sleep he could get, taking short naps in between bouts of swimming ahead, always making sure he’d wake up in time to keep up with the ship. This routine naturally left him tired out and exhausted, and so after falling asleep on a lovely patch of soft seagrass what had been bound to happen, happened: he overslept and lost the ship.

Alex turned rapidly, scanning the water all around, but there was no sign of the ship. Where had it gone? If they had stayed on the same course as before, then maybe he still had a chance of finding the ship again, however if they hadn’t… As if his situation hadn’t been bad enough already, it suddenly got much worse. The death bracelet around his wrist activated. 

Panic rose in him, he had to find the ship now. He still vaguely remembered the direction they’d been sailing in before and rushed ahead, spurring himself to his top speed. Luckily, his overlong nap had restored at least some of his energy. The tingling in his arm got more and more intense and slowly transformed into pain, but he had no time to think about it and just continued swimming. He had to make it to the ship before the pain got so intense that he wouldn’t be able to swim anymore, if it got to that, he was as sure as dead. He had to make it, he just had to…

Finally, he spotted the familiar dark hull a couple of whale-lengths ahead. Relief rushed through him; he’d never been this happy to see a ship before. He jumped up high above the waves to attract the pirates attention, and after a couple of repeats the death bracelet finally deactivated. Exhausted and utterly out of breath Alex grabbed onto the tow and pulled his head up above the water, the switch from gill to lung breathing even more uncomfortable as usual. Looking up he could see Morden standing on the stern above, frowning down at him disapprovingly.

“Well?” Alex said in-between heavy gasps. “You called?”

The corner of Morden’s mouth twitched in amusement, before he schooled his expression back into a scowl. 

“Explain yourself, please. My first assumption would have to be that you tried to escape, but luckily I know that you are way too smart for that.” 

“What, do I have to always stay right beside the ship at all times?” Now that the shock of the moment had passed, Alex began to feel angry again. 

“I did tell you to stay close enough to present yourself when you are called,” Morden reminded him.

Alex huffed. “Maybe you just need to be more patient when you call me, there’s not always a lot fish in everywhere and I do need to eat, you know?” 

“These waters are too rich in fish to explain you taking over an hour to get back to the ship from your hunt,” Morden asserted. “Now, if you aren’t able to give me an adequate explanation, I’m afraid that I will have to assume that you attempted to escape.”

“I didn’t try to escape,” Alex protested. 

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

Morden’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “If you are lying to me –“

“I really didn’t try to run, okay?” Alex took a deep breath. “I just lost the ship.”

“That doesn’t explain anything,” Morden said. “How would you lose the ship in broad daylight?” 

“I was asleep,” Alex replied. “I was so tired and only meant to take a short nap, but when I woke up again the ship was gone. I tried to find it again as fast as I could, I swear.”

“Why didn’t you use the tow if you wanted to sleep?” Morden asked.

“I can't sleep there, it hurts too much,” Alex admitted. “If I tie it around my upper body, it damages the scales and leaves bruises, and the one time I tied it to my arm I almost pulled a joint.”

“So you never slept long but tried to take small naps, hoping you’d wake up in time?” 

“It worked so far!” Alex felt a little defensive. “And it’s not like there was anything else I could have done.”

Morden sighed. “You could have informed me of this problem. Why didn’t you?”

“I didn't think you'd care about it.” The captain’s reaction confused Alex; it wasn’t what he’d expected.

“Of course I care about it, you are a part of my crew now,” Morden said factually. “A very special and hard to replace one at that.” He gave Alex a smirk. 

Alex swished his tail, looking doubtful and clearly not believing a word Morden said. 

Morden rubbed his forehead. “You may come to me if there's something bothering you, and I will see what can be done about it. Please do inform me of any further issues.”

Alex wasn’t sure whether he actually believed it but nodded.

“Good.” Morden smiled at him. “The reason I called you is the following. We will arrive at Port Royal soon and will presumably stay for a few days, during which you may wait at the edge of the bay and catch up on sleep.”

“And I will figure out how to solve your sleeping problem for the future, we can’t have you losing the ship every now and then, can we?” he added with an amused smile. 

“Whatever,” Alex mumbled, he didn’t trust the pirate’s fake friendliness and concern one bit. Richard had pretended to be nice too, at first, and he still remembered the awfully building pain from the death bracelet earlier. Yet he was surprised that Morden made no move to punish him for his tardiness and that he hadn’t told him to stop complaining and get over it. He just wished that the captain would stop referring to him as a part of his crew, it reminded him too much of a time when he naively wished for nothing more.

~~~

Now that he knew where the pirates were headed Alex allowed himself to trail behind the ship at a more comfortable pace, and it didn’t take long until a big island came into view at the horizon. Alex had been to Port Royal before, or well, he had waited close by while Richard’s crew had visited the town. Back then he had been very curious about the place and had even sneaked into the bay at night against Richard’s orders to catch a better view. He’d been both fascinated and frightened by the noise and activity, there had been a lot of ships in the harbour and just so, so many humans everywhere.

Now he knew that Port Royal was the biggest pirate haven in the region and therefore a thriving trade centre for all kinds of stolen goods. It made sense that Morden’s crew would go there to sell their loot after how many successful raids they’d had recently, as well as to stock up on provisions and rest. There were many things humans did that Alex found difficult to understand, and the act of giving up so much of their collected treasure for other things was one of them. When he’d heard Richard’s crew talking about wasting their shares on alcohol he’d been intrigued, curious as to what this miraculous substance was that some humans seemed to prize above treasures. After Tobruk had forced him to drink some of the disgusting and burning fluid he understood it even less, but his curiosity towards it had been successfully dispelled.

He hung back as the _Thanatos_ entered the harbour and set off to find the sheltered area between a couple of tiny islands offshore he’d stayed at before. In a way this period of rest was just what he needed, the pirates would surely stay in the harbour for at least three days, which would be enough time for him to catch up on his missing sleep and recover before they set sails again. He soon found the sheltered lagoon and was surprised to see that he wasn’t the only one here this time.

A mermaid and a merman swam up from where they’d been resting when they spotted him, the latter just slightly positioning himself in front to shield the former. Alex hesitated for a moment, then swam closer, there was no warning coming from his premonition and the two didn’t look particularly dangerous to him. Maybe they were just passing through, or maybe their situation was similar to his and they were waiting for the pirates that had caught them. When he came closer he saw that they didn’t wear any death bracelets at the same moment that they noticed his.

“Back off!” the merman shouted once he saw the bracelet. He had brown skin and red to orange toned scales that reminded Alex of the fire he’d seen on burning ships, and his hair was covered by a turban. “We’re under Captain Jagadev’s protection, so don’t even try it.”

Realising what conclusion the merman must have made, Alex lifted his hands in a gesture of peace. 

“Relax, I’m not here to hurt you,” he appeased. “The pirates that captured me didn’t send me to lure in anyone, I’m just here to wait until they leave the port again.”

The merman was still suspicious. “What pirates and ship are you with?” 

“The captain calls himself Morden, and the ship is named _Thanatos_ ,” Alex replied, a little confused as to why that would matter.

The two merfolk exchanged a look and seemed relieved by his answer, but Alex could tell that they still didn’t trust him. 

“Look, I just came here to rest for a couple of days, but I can find another place too,” Alex said. “I won’t bother you; you claimed this spot first, and if you don’t want to talk, I’ll just go.”

“Sure, piss off then,” the merman said bluntly. 

“Variam! Don’t be so rude, he seems pretty nice,” the mermaid said. She was slim and pale, her shoulder length black hair drifted around her head in the waves, and her scales shimmered in a deep, dark green. She turned to Alex. “I’m sorry, of course you can swim with us while we wait.”

“Thank you.” Alex gave her a smile. “I’m Alex, by the way.”

She smiled back. “I’m Anne and he’s Variam.”

Variam just huffed, but finally gave up his threatening posture. 

“Are you guys hungry?” Alex asked, after all there was no better way to ease tensions than with a joint hunt and meal. “I could definitely eat something, and I saw a group of bonito on the way not far from here.” 

“That sounds great,” Anne said, then looked at Variam.

“Fine,” Variam grumbled. “But I warn you, Alex – if this is some kind of trick, you’ll regret it.”

Using already captured merfolk to lure in and catch others was a rather common trick employed by pirates and Navy alike, so Alex didn’t really fault Anne and Variam for their suspicion. They followed him wearily out into deeper waters and relaxed when they saw that there truly was no ship waiting for them but the promised shoal of fish. Over the course of his life Alex had become quite proficient at hunting on his own, but now he quickly fell into the patterns he’d learned as a juvenile. With the way the three of them worked together the bonito stood no chance of escape. 

Soon they each had caught a big fish and didn’t hesitate to devour them on the spot. Compared to human meal etiquette merfolk eating habits could seem rather savage, and as Alex had learned they even offended the drastically lowered sensitivities of pirates. Sated and a lot more at ease than before Variam, Anne and Alex returned to the sheltered lagoon to rest. 

“How long have you been with your pirates?” Anne asked.

“These ones? About a moon,” Alex replied. In a way it was surprising that it’d been that long already, while at the same time it was a little chilling how fast he had adapted.

“Oh, so recent,” Anne said surprised. “How did they…?”

“With treasure bait in a trap,” Alex replied bitterly. “I was stupid, didn’t pay enough attention and only noticed the silver net when it was too late.”

“They caught you in a silver net? Damn, that’s rough,” Variam commented. 

Alex snorted. “That’s one way to put it.”

“These pirates of yours really don’t seem to play around, sliver nets and death bracelets…” 

“Talking of death bracelets – how come you guys aren’t wearing any?” Alex asked. The name of the captain Variam had mentioned earlier was one he’d heard before, and from the tales surrounding it, it hadn’t seemed as if Jagadev was any better than most pirates. 

“We aren’t wearing any, because Jagadev knows it isn’t necessary,” Anne explained. 

Alex tiled his head. “How so?” 

Anne and Variam exchanged a look, as if to debate about how much they should tell him. 

“He protects us, so in return we work for him,” Anne said eventually. 

“Protects you from what, other pirates?” Alex probed. It was a little strange, usually merfolk turned to the Navy to protect them from pirates in exchange for their service, not other pirates. 

“Basically, yeah,” Variam said, his tone making clear that he considered the topic to be done. 

Unwilling to upset his newfound acquaintances so soon Alex decided to drop it for now.

~~~

In the end Alex spent five days with Anne and Variam. They talked, hunted and raced together, and became somewhat more than casual acquaintances in the process. Alex still didn’t feel like Variam trusted him, and he was surprised to discover that despite his fierce protectiveness of her, the other merman didn’t even seem to like Anne all that much. It took a while, but eventually he managed to coax the story of what had happened out of them.

Anne and Variam’s families belonged to pods that lived rather close to each other, and Variam’s brother had been good friends with Anne. Unfortunately, she had been captured by a cruel pirate called Sagash, who sounded to be in no way inferior to Richard when it came to horribleness. Together with his brother Variam had tried and miraculously succeeded in freeing Anne, which had tragically resulted in his brother’s death. Since Sagash had been very taken by Anne’s outstandingly strong sense for treasures, the danger of him hunting and capturing her again was high. When Jagadev offered them protection they’d had no other choice but to accept his terms. 

Alex felt unexpectedly reluctant to part from them when Morden called, spending so much time with other merfolk had almost let him forget the uncomfortable situation he was in. 

“There is a place, under half a moon of swimming away to the southeast, that is generally very safe from humans,” Alex told them before saying farewell. “A remote cluster of small islands protected by shoals and reefs. I lived there for many moons, and a very dear friend of mine, Luna, still lives there.” He described its location in more detail. “If you ever want to get away from Jagadev, you could go there.”

Variam nodded at him. “I still don’t trust you, but thanks.” 

“Thank you, Alex. We’ll keep it in mind,” Anne said. “Take care!”

~~~

Alex saw the _Thanatos_ leave the harbour and followed it, wondering where its path would lead him now. Probably to one of the close by trading routes, he still remembered Richard hunting there as well. As he swam closer to the ship he spotted something curious: there was a small lifeboat tethered to the stern of the ship. The death bracelet sent tingles through his forearm and he hurried to catch up, his confusion only increasing when he saw that the lifeboat was empty and that even the sitting boards had been removed.

Morden stood at the railing and threw him a rope so that he didn’t have to swim to keep up with the ship while they talked. 

“I trust you had a good holiday?” Morden called in greeting. 

Alex wasn’t sure what exactly a ‘holiday’ was, but he didn’t want to ask and merely nodded. 

“Good.” Morden smiled. “I would like to introduce you to one of our newest recruits, please meet Cinder; Cinder, this is Verus.”

A very strong and muscular looking man stepped up to the railing and slightly lifted a hand in greeting, mustering Alex with interest. Next to him a blonde woman wearing a mask appeared and made a shocked sound upon seeing the merman in the water beneath her. Alex frowned, why was Morden introducing new crewmembers to him? And why was that woman so surprised to see him? Had she never seen merfolk before? 

When Alex made no move to return the greeting, Morden continued. “You will be happy to hear that we have found solution to your sleeping problem. Cinder here was the one who suggested it, actually, which is why he will be responsible for its execution.” 

Cinder cleared his throat. “A while ago I was signed on a ship that had a mermaid, so that's where I saw this.” He gestured towards the rear of the ship. “You can rest in the lifeboat and fill it with water so that you don’t dry out. You just have to be careful it doesn't sink.” 

Alex listened to Cinder’s explanation, waiting for the catch. He was confused that there didn’t seem to be one, the idea actually sounded pretty good. Quite absurd and somewhat ridiculous, but doable. Some part of him had expected Morden to come up with an even more painful way so that he wouldn’t complain about the tow anymore. 

“What is your opinion, Verus?” Morden asked. “Do you think this method will work?”

“Yes, I think so,” Alex replied truthfully. “At least as long as the sea is calm.” 

“Excellent.” Morden smiled at him. “If that is all, then you are dismissed.”

Alex was confused that the captain didn’t ask for payment, it felt weird that he would give him something without getting anything in return. He knew that humans didn’t give a damn about the comfort and well-being of magical creatures, and he really wished that Morden would stop the farce or pretending otherwise. Then again it made sense that he didn’t want Alex to get injured or overly exhausted, after all he was a highly useful tool that would be difficult to replace once broken. 

At nightfall Alex took a closer look at the lifeboat. With the bucket he found inside he began to fill it with water, then tried to heave himself inside. It took him an almost embarrassing number of attempts before he succeeded. Lying flat on his back he was able to submerse himself almost completely in the water, eventually finding a comfortable position. Looking up at the sky he could see the brilliant stars above and decided that maybe, this absurd sleeping arrangement wasn’t all that bad.


	6. Chapter 6

Alex felt the storm coming in long before the sky showed even a hint of clouds. Unlike him the pirates didn’t sense anything amiss and simply went about their usual business, which mostly consisted of maintenance work around the ship, training, and various card or dice games to pass the time. While the crew of the _Welsh Dragon_ had also loved to alleviate their boredom by pestering Alex, these pirates thankfully ignored him most of the time. 

Of course some of them liked to watch him swim, just like he sometimes watched them at their work, but so far only very few of them had dared to attempt interacting with him. The younger ones were the most curious, probably because they had never seen merfolk before. Alex found it hard to believe that this was also the reason for why the new woman with the mask stared at him so often, but he was unable to think of another explanation. Apart from the fact that she had been assigned to the gunners together with Cinder, he didn’t know anything about her so far, and as long as she left him alone he wasn’t interested in finding out any else either. 

Up on the deck Alex could see Morden discussing something with his second in command by the railing, but he was unable to make out any of their words over the sound of the wind and waves. When Onyx spotted his head in the water he glared at him, to which Alex replied by sticking out his tongue. He didn’t know what humans found so enraging about that gesture, but it still had the desired effect. Unfortunately, Morden noticed Onyx’s anger, turned around and gave Alex a smile in greeting. Before he had the chance to say anything, Alex dived away. 

This would be the perfect opportunity to tell Morden about the oncoming storm. If he told them now, they might still have enough time to set the storm sails and to get as far out onto the open sea as possible. Without those preparations the likelihood of the ship sinking or striking the shore was much higher, both of which would most likely result in the deaths of the entire crew. A storm had already helped Alex to escape once, maybe it would work again? 

And besides, it wasn’t his fault that the pirates didn’t sense the storm themselves. Alex’s scales crawled with the nearing upheaval, he found it hard to comprehend how the pirates couldn’t feel the brewing of elements and magic. Humans simply didn’t belong on the sea, he concluded. They relied on their boats and maps and measuring equipment, but they didn’t understand the sea the way its creatures did.

He’d heard a lot of sailors say that they loved the sea but had never agreed with that statement. Humans didn’t love the sea, they didn’t understand it, and what humans didn’t understand they feared. No matter what they said, they all were terrified of the ocean and everything in it. And what humans feared they didn’t like and therefore tried to control – or kill.

Diving under the hull Alex caught sight of the death bracelet around his wrist. He hoped that the ship would sink.

~~~

When the wind picked up and dark clouds gathered on the horizon the pirates started to get agitated, by now even they could see that the oncoming storm wouldn’t be an easy one. Morden calmly instructed his crew to prepare the ship, and Alex couldn’t help but be a little impressed with how disciplined and smoothly the tasks were carried out. The pirates efficiently stowed most of the sails, only leaving up two in the front, adjusted the cargo load to lower the risk of broaching, and pulled up the lifeboat Alex had slept in since their stop at Port Royal.

With the onset of heavy rain all but the essential crew took shelter under deck, while the remaining pirates tied themselves to their stations to avoid being thrown off the ship by the tall waves. Morden also stayed up on the raised quarterdeck and gave Alex a polite nod in acknowledgement when their eyes met. Outwardly the captain still appeared confident and unconcerned, making Alex wonder if it was just an act to calm his crew or if he truly was this sure of himself.

Soon the storm was at its height and threw the _Thanatos_ around between the violent waves, the rain beating down on its crew as they struggled against the onslaught. The roaring wind almost drowned the orders Morden shouted at them while he fought to keep the ship under control, gripping onto the steering wheel tightly. Alex had to admit that he was a very skilled helmsman with a good sense for the storm, but Richard had been so as well. In the end not even his outstanding experience and skill had saved the _Welsh Dragon_ from sinking.

Alex followed the _Thanatos_ with enough distance to avoid getting thrown against its hull by the waves but didn’t dare to let the ship out of his eyes out of fear of losing it again. Although Morden deftly kept the ship sailing the storm at an angle, there was no way Alex would be able to track the course if he lost sight of it. Suddenly, a cry from the deck caught his attention.

“Man overboard! Man overboard!” The voice sounded distressed, but there was nothing any of the pirates could do. A man that went overboard in a storm was lost to the sea forever.

In the water ahead Alex could see the thrashing body of a rapidly sinking human and was taken aback when he recognised it as the cabin boy, whom he’d seen running errands about the ship many times. Without hesitating for another moment he shot over, grabbed the boys arm and pulled him up to the surface. The boy was understandably scared and clung to Alex with desperation as he gasped for air.

“Calm down!” Alex snapped at him; it was hard enough to stay atop the waves without having to fight the panicky human. “I’ve got you, but I can’t help you if you drown me first.” 

“S-s-sorry.” The boy was crying and wheezing, but bravely tried to keep still. 

A swell of water washed over their heads and pressed them down, spinning them through the dark until Alex regained orientation and brought them back up with forceful flaps of his fin. 

“It’s alright, it’s alright; I’ve got you,” he tried to reassure the kid. “We’ll make it, okay?”

“Okay,” the boy croaked, his voice shook. “I – why – why are you helping me?”

The question caught Alex by surprise, he didn’t know how to answer it. Just minutes ago he had wished for the ship to sink, which most likely would have killed its entire crew. So why was he saving one of them now? He hated the pirates and wouldn’t mind them drowning… but this one was just a juvenile. Of course he had to save him.

“Because I’m not like you pirates,” he replied curtly, then the next wave demanded all of his attention. The storm raged on as he did everything to keep the boy’s head above the water, while also trying to follow the ship. Struggling against the powerful current Alex knew that it was going to be a long night.

~~~

In the early light of the morning the storm finally let off. By now the cabin boy had gone limp in Alex’s arms, his energy depleted and solely focused on keeping his head up and breathing. Despite Alex’s best efforts he’d been forced under water many times throughout the night and had probably swallowed enough seawater for a lifetime. Alex was utterly exhausted as well, his muscles burned, and although he had napped on the previous day in preparation for the storm, he still felt incredibly tired.

“Hey!” he called up at the ship, damning how much more hoarse and quiet his voice sounded in air. He nudged the boy. “Come on, help me get their attention, I can’t shout loud enough.”

The boy stirred and opened his eyes, seemingly filled with new life when he saw the ship. “Help!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Help me! I’m here, help me!”

There was movement on the deck, and once the initial surprise had passed the pirates lowered a rope ladder down to the sea level. Alex swam close and helped the boy climb onto it. As much has he had clung to him before the boy now eagerly pulled himself out of the water. Before climbing up, he paused and turned around to face Alex. 

“Thank you, uhm, Mr merman. Thank you so much for saving me.” 

“You’re welcome.” Alex was surprised, he hadn’t expected that. “You can call me Verus, though.”

“Okay, thank you, Verus.” The boy smiled shyly. “I’m Charles – I don’t have a protective name yet.”

“Do you want to come back up or not?” a woman called from the deck, causing Charles to jump.

“Sorry, Moire, I’m coming!” Charles gave Alex an apologetic smile, then scrambled up the ladder. 

Alex watched him climb, smiling fondly at his enthusiasm and the warm way he was received. Despite his unchanged hatred for the pirates, he was glad that he had saved the boy. He kept holding on to the ladder, happy to rest his sore muscles at least for a little while. Up on deck the ruckus died down as Morden stepped into view, and Charles’ cheerfulness suddenly turned into nervosity. 

“I distinctly remember having ordered you to stay under deck during the storm, haven’t I?” Morden said. 

“Yes, sir,” Charles mumbled, looking down. 

“Then how could you have fallen overboard?”

Charles swallowed. “I went out,” he admitted. 

“And why did you do that? Were you so bored with following my orders that you decided to go for a swim instead?”

“N-no, sir!” Charles protested, sneaking a glance up at Morden. “I just – I just wanted to help.” 

“If your help had been needed, you would have been told so,” Morden said. “But you weren’t needed, and so I ordered you to stay under deck with the others – precisely to avoid a situation like this.”

Charles hung his head in shame. “I’m sorry, captain. I’ll stay inside next time, I promise!”

“I’d strongly advise you to do so,” Morden said sternly. Then his expression softened, and he clapped Charles on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re still with us, Mr Walsh.”

“Me too, sir,” Charles said, lightening up immediately. “Verus saved me, he held me up through the entire storm.” 

Morden looked down at the sea, and this time Alex returned his polite nod. 

“Please wait here, I will be with you shortly,” Morden said, and Alex nodded again in acknowledgement. 

He heard the pirates talking to each other as they walked away from the banister, clearly making out Charles’ excited voice amidst the chatter. He didn’t know why Morden wanted to talk to him, but right now he was fine with staying where he was. With how exhausted he felt, he didn’t even want to think of swimming at the moment. He was half-daydreaming about taking a nap in the lifeboat, when Morden returned. 

“I would like to personally thank you for saving a member of my crew,” he said after he’d settled on the ladder. “I must confess that I am surprised, I wouldn’t have expected you to care.”

Alex shrugged. “He’s still a juvenile, he’s not at fault. Of course I had to save him.”

“So you are a sentimental person, after all?”

“If it had been you, I wouldn’t have twitched a fin and gladly watched you drown,” Alex spat, swishing his tail. 

Against his expectations Morden threw his head back and laughed. Alex glowered, angry at how nice the smooth and silvery sound was. The storm hadn’t left Morden unaffected either, his clothes were drenched from the rain, his hat was missing, and there were dark circles under his eyes from the lack of sleep. But despite the clear traces of exhaustion, his face unfairly hadn’t lost any of its handsomeness. 

Morden still smiled as he pulled something from his pocket. “Here, I’ve got something for you,” he said and handed Alex a coiled object. 

Alex took it carefully and his mood lifted immediately when he realised what it was. Fascinated he held up the golden necklace, admiring the way the small jewels sparkled in the light. It was beautifully crafted, and the materials felt very valuable to him. Suddenly he remembered the pirate watching him and was embarrassed at how easily he’d been distracted by the treasure.

“Why are you giving me this?” he asked bluntly. 

“It’s a reward for saving Charles’ life,” Morden said. “Do you like it?”

Alex looked down at the gorgeous necklace in his hand, suppressing the urge to admire it in more detail. “It’s fine,” he muttered. He wanted to refuse accepting gifts from the captain and throw it away, but that wouldn’t achieve anything.

Morden smiled. “I’m glad you like it. From now on, you may receive a share of every treasure we acquire if you want.”

“Why?” Alex asked again, suspicious of why Morden would do such a thing. He was already forced to serve the pirates, why waste a part of the spoils on him?

“Because you have truly proven yourself as a part of the crew now.”

Alex snorted. “Don’t forget you’re forcing me to do this, I’m not part of your stupid crew.”

“If you say so,” Morden said, sounding unconcerned. 

“How old his Charles?” Alex asked after a moment of silence. “He seems young.”

“He’s about thirteen, so not quite one hundred sixty moons yet,” Morden replied.

“That’s really young!” Alex was shocked, the youngest members of Richard’s crew had been at least thirty moons older than that.

“It is,” Morden agreed. “It’s not uncommon for cabin boys to be even younger, but I generally don’t hire that young, not even for that position.”

“Then why…?”

Morden sighed. “In the light of recent events it appears that our dear Mr Walsh simply has a predisposition for showing up in places he doesn’t belong.” 

“He sneaked onto the ship?” Alex grinned, the idea of Morden overlooking a blind passenger on his ship was inexplicably funny to him. 

“Indeed,” Morden said and shook his head. “He somehow managed to hide in the storage room for over a week and was only discovered when the cook noticed that supplies had gone missing. Common practice with such rats would be to simply throw them overboard, but...” 

“But you were sentimental too?” Alex suggested.

Morden huffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. It was Moire, our quartermaster, who somehow took a liking to him and decided to keep him around. I merely allowed it because of how useful a person with a short stature and small hands can be around a ship.”

“Of course,” Alex muttered, mentally hitting himself for the stupid notion that someone like Morden would care about others beyond their uses to him. He fumbled with the necklace, trying to wrap and fasten it around his forearm, but was unable to open the clasp with his long claws. 

“May I help you with that?” Morden offered, gesturing towards the necklace. 

Alex was about to rudely decline, then hesitated. He didn’t want Morden to help him, but at the same time he didn’t want to risk losing this treasure to the depths of the ocean either. Slowly he held his arm out to Morden and kept still while he fastened the clasp. 

“Thanks,” Alex mumbled, unsure whether he’d made the right decision.

“You’re welcome, Verus.” Morden smiled at him. “Keep up the good work, and you’ll be rewarded even more.” 

Alex’s face darkened, he didn’t want Morden to think that he could bribe him with treasures and treats into working for him out of his free will. 

“Is that all?” he asked brusquely. 

If Morden was surprised at his sudden mood change, he didn’t show it. “Yes, that is all for now. You are dismissed.”

Without further reply Alex dived away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're interested, [this](https://elde-modellbau.com/WebRoot/Store6/Shops/bd40fd5d-0ba8-443f-857a-537621b491ae/5B69/39D9/DF00/7614/53CC/0A48/351F/60A7/PHOENIX_1.jpg) is the ship model I use as a reference for the _Thanatos_.


	7. Chapter 7

Although they still didn’t really interact with him, Alex had the impression that the pirates had warmed up to him somewhat after he’d saved the cabin boy. Some of them gave him polite nods when their eyes met, and Moire, the quartermaster who had taken the boy under her wing, had even thanked him. Understandably, the most grateful one was Charles himself. 

Where he had just shyly watched Alex before, he now excitedly waved at him whenever he saw him swim by. A bit overwhelmed but also charmed by the boy’s enthusiasm Alex had decided to indulge him and often waved back. One time he had even allowed himself to be carried away and performed a series of jumps and leaps for his delighted audience, until Charles had been reprimanded to focus on his tasks instead. 

Morden kept his word and additionally rewarded him with a share of every treasure they found. To his delight the things Morden selected were very much to his liking and mostly consisted of jewellery, small gilded objects and precious stones. He had also given him a leather pouch to transport his treasure in, and Alex had to admit that it was very practical. They’d had a good spoil so far, and he thought that if they continued at this pace, it wouldn’t be long now until he’d have enough to make a new hoard.

He was just swimming by the ship, admiring his newest gemmed ring, when a noise from above attracted his attention. Looking up a spotted the masked woman through one of the gun ports – only that now she had taken her mask off, and he saw her face for the first time. He recoiled.

“Rachel?” he gasped, too stunned to move. 

It didn’t make any sense; it couldn’t be her. Rachel had been one of the youngest members of Richard’s crew, together with Tobruk and Shireen. Tobruk was dead, he knew that for certain, and he’d always assumed that the others had died when the _Welsh Dragon_ sank. The ship had sunk, hadn’t it? He hadn't seen it with his own eyes, but it must have, the storm had been so strong, and it had never been seen again afterwards… and yet here she was.

Rachel whipped around, and her expression immediately switched from surprise to anger when she saw him.

“How are you alive?” Alex asked, still in shock. “The _Welsh Dragon_ sank! I thought you died with it!”

“That would have suited you just right, wouldn't it?” Rachel said bitterly. “You were all eager and happy to work for some trinkets and fruits until the job got too much for you, and then you didn't hesitate to betray us. Are you planning on sinking this ship too?”

“What?” Alex was confused. “Do you think I can control the weather or something? I had nothing to do with that storm!” He decided to keep the he fact that if he could, he would have already sunk the ship a while ago, to himself.

She looked at him with narrowed eyes, then said, “You know what you did.”

“Alright. So, what have you been up to? Signing on to one lousy pirate ship after the other?” The _Thanatos_ could hardly be described as ‘lousy’, but that was just a technicality.

Rachel’s hand twitched towards the weapons in her belt, but in the end she just put the mask back on. “And you found yourself another crew to play pet for and reap rewards from until you betray them too?” she scoffed.

“Do you think I’m doing this out of my free will?” Alex demonstratively lifted his wrist with the death bracelet. “Your new friends caught me in a silver net and now force me to obey with this.”

“Suits you right,” Rachel spat, and Alex was taken aback by the anger behind it. 

“Del, what’s going on?” Cinder’s voice asked from somewhere behind her. 

Alex jerked his chin in the direction of the ship. “What's up with that guy, anyways? Weren’t you always hanging around with Shireen before? Did you ditch her for him, or what?”

Suddenly his premonition screamed, and he managed to duck just in time to avoid the knife Rachel flung at his head. 

“Hey!” he complained and looked up to see her getting ready for another throw.

“Deleo, stop!” Cinder called and grabbed her wrist. “The captain will kill us if you injure the fish.”

“But he talked about _her_!”

“Come on, let’s go back up.” Cinder pulled her away from the gun port, then turned over his shoulder to address Alex. “Her friend died in a storm, so maybe have some tact next time.”

Alex stared after them, confused. “Still, she didn’t have to throw a knife at me,” he muttered and turned away from the ship, he had it up to here with humans for now.

~~~

A couple of days later Alex was scouting a nearby trading route, looking for a merchant vessel that was scheduled to pass through these waters, according to plans the pirates had stolen off another ship. And true enough, he did spot a big galleon that matched Morden’s description and was only marginally behind schedule – the greater news was the fact that there was another ship accompanying it. From the direction he’d approached it had been hidden behind the merchant vessel at first, as it was a lot smaller.

Sneaking closer he noticed that despite its small seize it was quite heavily armed and flew the distinctive flag of the Navy. Most likely an escort for protection… which probably meant that the merchant ship’s cargo was a lot more valuable than expected. Morden would definitely want to know about this change to adjust his attack plan accordingly… which meant that this could be Alex’s chance. If the storm hadn’t managed to kill the pirates, then maybe these other humans would.

Back at the _Thanatos_ Alex announced his return as usual by jumping high and didn’t have to wait long for Morden to step to the railing.

“Well?” he asked and expectantly clasped his hands behind his back. 

“I found the ship, it’s that way,” Alex said and pointed in the direction he’d come from. 

“Good.” Morden sounded pleased. “Is there anything else?”

Alex shook his head. “The ship looks just as big as you said it would, and the crew seize fits too.” Even though there was no way for the captain to know about the escort, he anxiously waited for him to detect his lie. Instead, Morden smiled. 

“Well done, Verus. You did a very good job,” he praised. “This should be an easy catch; I expect these merchants will prefer immediate surrender to a fight.” Turning around to the crew he shouted, “Change course by forty degrees northwest! We’re taking this one head on, prepare for a boarding without resistance.”

His orders were met with a chorus of “Aye, captain!” and the crew hurried to follow them. 

Alex’s nervosity increased with every flap of fin that brought them closer to their target. If he had miscalculated and the pirates survived, Morden would be incredibly pissed with him, and he truly didn’t want to experience that. Now that his cards were played all he could do was hope that the Navy ship would sufficiently surprise and then sink the pirates. Only the knowledge that Charles would be caught in that as well made him feel guilty, but he swore himself that he’d try his best to save the boy again and bring him to the closest island.

When the lookout announced a ship in sight Alex tensed, then relaxed when it turned out that he had only seen the larger vessel. The pirates stayed on course, oblivious to the hidden threat. The merchants must have spotted them by now as well but appeared to be fooled by the false Navy flag they flew at the moment and didn’t initiate any evasive manoeuvres either. This deception would stop working once the ships got so close that the other crew would be able to see that they didn’t wear uniform, but by then it would be too late to get out of firing range – for either of them. 

Up on deck the pirates were getting ready when a sudden cry came from the crow’s nest: the lookout had finally spotted the second ship. The tension and anxiety that followed was almost physically palpable, they all knew that it was too late to turn back now. Gazing up from beneath the surface Alex saw Morden standing at bow, looking through his telescope and assessing their chances. Onyx and Moire joined him, and after a short discussion affirmed the order to stay on course. 

Alex’s fins flared in surprise, apparently they planned on bluffing both the merchants and the Navy into surrender. It was a huge risk, if it came to a fight, the _Thanatos_ could easily get caught between the two ships and be torn to shreds – he couldn’t help but be impressed with Morden’s nerve.

At the stern the pirates were getting ready to switch the false flag with the black, tensely waiting for Morden’s signal. As Richard had explained to him many years ago, the act of hoisting the true colours was a delicate affair. If the black was hissed too early, it might spook the target, whereas if it’s too late, they might panic and start shooting. To achieve a surrender the reveal must catch the victims at exactly the right moment, which required both experience and intuition. 

Morden intently watched the rapidly nearing ships through his telescope, one hand raised as signal to wait. The tension among the crew rose, everyone understood the severity of the situation they were in, but discipline held, and everyone stayed at their positions, waiting. Alex felt incredibly anxious as well, the suspense was getting too much… Suddenly, Morden dropped his hand and shouted, “Now!” The pirates immediately dropped the false flag and hissed the black, a stark contrast with a pair of crossed red sabres prominently displayed against the black ground.

On the other ships Alex saw people running around in alarm and exchange flag signals, probably discussing how to deal with the sudden threat. Meanwhile the ships were getting closer and closer, an interception of their paths was unavoidable. The pirates held their breaths, would the Navy fall for the bluff or decide to fight? Alex intently hoped for the latter, imploring the Navy crew to realise their chance… but then two white flags were hoisted high, signalling surrender. 

The pirates cheered, and some even laughed from relief when the tension suddenly dissolved; Morden’s bluff had actually worked. Disappointed Alex dived away, deciding that it might be better for his health if he stayed out of their sights for now.

~~~

First the pirates took over the smaller Navy ship, disarming and shackling its crew, and then moved them to the merchant vessel where they could keep watch of all their prisoners at once. By now the sailors must have noticed that they actually outmanned and outgunned the pirates, but it was too late for them to do anything about it. They were left to stew in their regrets as the pirates looted the cargo holds, before leaving them atop the merchant vessel and taking their well-armed ship with them.

Alex’s stomach churned with dread when he felt the familiar tingles of the death bracelet being in activated but forced himself to follow the call. Ignoring it now would only make things worse, and he had no illusions about how bad they already were. Above the water he found Morden sitting on the ladder against the hull, only this time there was no smile on his face. Alex set on to say something, but Morden cut him off. 

“Don't even attempt to tell me that you didn’t see the sloop before, you are on thin enough ice already without adding another lie,” he said coldly. 

Alex looked down, there was nothing he could say to make things better. He had pushed his luck too far and would have to deal with the consequences. He didn’t understand what ‘ice’ had to do with the current situation, Morden had told him that it was the solid form water took on in the cold, but he severely doubted that he would appreciate his questions at the moment. Still not looking at the captain Alex braced himself and waited for the pain of the death bracelet. 

Morden sighed. “You can count yourself lucky that your plan utterly failed and there were no casualties. Because of that and the fact that this is the first time you failed your mission, I am willing to let this infraction slide this once.” 

Alex’s head shot up with surprise, he hadn’t expected that at all. 

“However, I’m sure you will agree that you don’t deserve to be rewarded. There won’t be a share of the, truthfully, very rich spoils or fruit for you this time.”

“Guess that’s fair,” Alex mumbled. He didn’t apologise for his actions though, and Morden didn’t seem to expect it anyways. 

“Hey, at least you got a new ship out of this,” Alex said, trying to lighten the mood a little. 

The corner of Morden’s mouth twitched. “As I said, you can count yourself lucky,” he said. “The _Thanatos_ was getting a little overcrowded with all the new acquisitions we’ve had lately, so this lovely sloop came just at the right moment. From now on Onyx will command the _Flying Seagul_ l, or _Ruthless_ as he wants to call it, together with a part of the crew.”

“Branching out, huh?” Alex asked, and Morden shrugged. It was interesting, while most pirate crews worked alone, not few captains dreamed of building and commanding a fleet. Apparently, Morden was one of those and had now taken a step in that direction. 

But before Alex could ask any further, he had already turned around and climbed back up on deck. Of course, no fruits also meant no talking. Alex was confused at how much he missed their usual ritual, the lack of their conversation stung even more than the fact that he wasn’t receiving a part of the treasure this time. They had been talking about the different animals on land and in the ocean before, and Alex felt a little distressed at how much he’d been looking forward to continuing it. 

He hadn’t expected to enjoy talking to a human ever again, lest of all a pirate. And yet here he was, upset that Morden didn’t want to talk with him after he had tried to get him and his entire crew killed. He huffed, it was ridiculous. At least he hadn’t been hurt in retaliation, that was the part he should focus on. He didn’t understand why Morden didn’t want to take revenge, but then again there were a lot of things he didn’t understand about him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reasons I’m writing this AU:   
> 1) The aesthetic   
> 2) Mermaid Alex is so cute   
> 3) I just really miss Black Sails ok


	8. Chapter 8

Whatever sympathies Alex had gathered after saving the cabin boy were completely dissipated by his attempt to get the pirates killed. Alex admitted that the crew’s anger was mostly justified, he too would be pissed if anyone tried the same on him, but he refused to feel guilty about it. The one who was probably the most upset was Charles. The revelation that his newest hero had wanted him and all the people he knew to die had hit him hard.

“Is it really true what they say?” he asked, cowering in one of the gun ports. “Did you really try get us killed?”

Looking up at the boys wide eyes Alex felt uneasy, they held so much hope, and yet he had to squash it. 

“Yes, it’s true,” he confirmed, then quickly continued speaking, as if that made Charles’ betrayed expression any better. “I didn’t tell Morden about the Navy ship on purpose, hoping that it would defeat you.” 

“Why? Why do you want all of us dead?”

“It’s not that, I just want to be free,” Alex snapped, annoyed by the accusation in the boy’s voice. “Did you forget that I’m forced to do this?” He demonstratively held up the death bracelet. “Or the way you caught me?”

Now Charles appeared guilty and mutely shook his head. 

Alex sighed. “Look, I wouldn’t have let you drown, I promise. I would have saved you again and brought you to the next island.” 

“Yeah, if I hadn’t been shot or stabbed by the Navy first,” Charles said bitterly. “Or even worse, taken captive.” He shuddered. 

“Oh, so you agree that being a captive isn’t great?” Alex huffed. “Maybe you even would try to kill some of the soldiers in hopes to escape, wouldn’t you?”

“That’s completely different!” Charles cried. He set on to elaborate but was cut off by a loud voice behind him. 

“Charles Walsh! Get away from the fish immediately! You know he’s dangerous.”

Charles jumped and reflexively obeyed, bringing more distance between him and the opening. 

“We were just talking,” he explained. 

“Sure, and you were close enough for the fish to reach you with his claws, bite you or pull you into the water,” the snapped the woman, whom Alex recognised as the quartermaster Moire. “He saved you, but he’s still a wild animal and can’t be trusted.”

Alex jerked back, both surprised and a little hurt by her words. The worst, however, was the frightened look Charles threw him. Without waiting for the humans to say anything else, he wordlessly sawm away.

~~~

A couple of days passed in which Alex tried to stay away from the ship as much as possible, coming the closest at night to sleep in the lifeboat. In a way it was rather relaxing to just swim with the ship, he didn’t have to be careful to pick a safe path, and despite the _Thanatos’_ impressive speed he still had enough time to explore and hunt at his leisure. If there was a perk to being with the pirates, it was that at least he didn’t have to worry about getting caught by any other humans and could swim further than he’d dared to in many moons.

Close to a small island he suddenly detected the characteristic pull of a nearby treasure. The pirates would never know about it, so theoretically he could simply ignore it… But it was well-known that the seafloor in these parts was densely littered with hidden merfolk hoards and sunken ships, so they certainly would become suspicious if he didn’t find anything for a longer stretch of time. Only reluctantly did he remember the way Richard’s crew had dealt with him whenever they’d suspected him of withholding treasures from them – no matter whether he’d actually done so or not. 

Begrudgingly he swam up to the ship and jumped into the air repeatedly until he spotted Morden at the railing. 

“Well?” Morden called down, his posture open and relaxed. 

Alex gestured towards the small island. “I can feel a treasure from over there, probably a merfolk hoard, but no one seems to be around.” 

“Very good.” Morden smiled at him. “Very good work indeed. We’ll get the lifeboat ready while you retrieve it, understood?” 

Alex nodded and dived away when Morden sent him off with a flick of his wrist. The shallow waters surrounding the island were beautifully clear and rich in life, making them a perfect spot for merfolk to set up camp – and hide a hoard. The pull of the treasure lead him towards a cluster of rocks bathed by the ocean, and he carefully waited for the right wave to carry him safely into their midst without getting thrown against one of them. By now the sense of the treasure was almost overwhelming, and he excitedly moved a couple of smaller stones to the side before digging into the white sand beneath.

Finally his claws hit something solid, he grabbed on to it tightly and used his fin to propel himself upwards, pulling the object with him. Once he’d safely made it out of the death-trap formed by the rocks and the strong waves, he took stock of what he’d found. It was a bag made of braided seaweed, filled with something heavy that unmistakably emitted a powerful pull. He grinned to himself, proud of his brilliant catch – but then remembered that he couldn’t keep it. His face fell, surely Morden wouldn’t go back to giving him a share of the spoils so soon after he’d attempt to kill them. 

But there was nothing to be done about it, and he definitely knew better than to take a part for himself, it had been painful enough when he’d learned that lesson the first time. When he returned to the _Thanatos_ he found that they had let the familiar lifeboat down to sea level again, secured to the ship by the davit. If Morden was startled by his sudden emersion in front of him, he didn’t show it and merely greeted him with a nod. 

“And?” he asked, peering at the blurred shape of the bag he had spotted under the surface. “Did you find what you were looking for?” 

“Yes,” Alex confirmed and heaved the bag up, as always put off by how much heavier things suddenly became once they were moved out of the water. That was one of the reasons why he absolutely hated being on land, it made his entire body feel at least twice its normal weight and caused all his movements to become weak and clumsy. 

Morden took the bag from him, and then instead of undoing the knots holding it close, he used a dagger to cut it open. Regarding its contents, he whistled through his teeth. 

“Not bad for such a small bag,” he decided. “Well done, Verus.” 

He flashed him a smile, and Alex caught himself returning it before he could stop himself. Morden rummaged through the treasure for a while, before he seemed to have found what he was looking for and pulled something from the bag. 

“Here, this is your share,” he said and held a simple golden necklace with a large sapphire pendant out to Alex. 

Alex’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really?”

“Of course.” Morden sounded amused. “You found this treasure entirely unprompted, that definitely deserves a reward. Come on, take it.”

Carefully Alex accepted the necklace from him, cradling the glittering stone in his hands. 

“Do you like it? I thought the colour would suit your scales beautifully.” 

“I do, it’s gorgeous,” Alex confirmed. He tore himself away from the sapphire and looked up at Morden. “I just didn’t think you’d give me anything, not after – well, you know.”

Morden shrugged. “There were a couple of crew members that did try to argue that withholding your share only once wasn’t punishment enough – although they were aiming for something more barbaric than a mere extension of that sentence. One of our newer recruits, Deleo, was especially persistent that such a betrayal could only be met with a swift death, but that seemed quite harsh to me.”

Alex clenched his teeth, apparently throwing knifes at him before hadn’t been enough for Rachel, she actually wanted him dead. Glancing at the necklace in his hand he asked, “And why don’t you listen to your crew?”

“Oh, I do listen to them,” Morden said. “I always try to take everyone’s suggestions into account, but the final decision will always be mine. And if anyone of them has a problem with it, they are allowed to duel me on it.” He grinned. “So far no one has taken me up on that offer in a long time, though.”

“Why not? Are you that good at it?” Alex asked bluntly. 

“You might say that, yes,” Morden replied casually, and Alex had a feeling that he wasn’t bragging at all. 

His eyes fell upon the sabre in Morden’s shoulder holster, which radiated a faint hint of magic. He jerked his chin towards it.

“What’s so special about that sword?” 

“It’s a naval cutlass,” Morden explained and drew it from its sheath. The curved blade was almost as long as his arm and the edge looked dangerously sharp. “It’s perfectly balanced and has been enchanted to be basically unbreakable and to never become dulled.”

“Sounds convenient.”

“It is.” Morden sheathed the sabre again. He turned around and fastened the bag filled to the brim with precious stones and metals to a rope. At his signal, the crewmen on deck began to pull it up, and a triumphant cry went up when they spotted the riches. Morden turned back to Alex and took a small pear from his coat pocket.

“This is the second part of your share,” he said, offering it to Alex. “Though if you tell me more about those deep-sea creatures and monsters, I will cut it for you.”

Alex blinked with surprise, then grinned. “Sure thing.”

~~~

Later that day Alex had already retired to the lifeboat to sleep, when he was suddenly awoken by the tingles the death bracelet sent into his arm. Grumbling he pulled himself over the side of the boat and slid into the water with a quiet splash. What the hell did Morden want from him in the middle of the night? After swimming a quick circle around the ship he was confused, he couldn’t see Morden anywhere. He was no-where to be seen up on deck, all the gun ports were closed and even the windows of the captain’s quarters were dark. And yet the bracelet around his wrist kept calling him.

When the persistent tingling slowly shifted into pain he was suddenly struck by realisation. It wasn’t Morden that was calling, but his second in command, Onyx. Quickly Alex crossed the distance between the _Thanatos_ and the smaller _Ruthless_ , trying to ignore the growing pain in his arm while he searched for the pirate. Finally he found him slouching in one of the gun ports, a frown on his face. 

“Took you long enough,” he said when Alex lifted his head above the waves in front of him. 

“Hey, I didn’t know it was you calling me,” Alex defended himself. “Besides, I was already asleep, you really got to have more patience at this time.”

“Oh, I’m sorry for interrupting your beauty-sleep,” Onyx sneered. “Next time I’ll expect you to come immediately, I don’t have time all night.”

Alex’s fins flared uncomfortably. “Next time? What do you want, anyways?” 

“Right, let’s get straight to business.” Onyx sat up straighter. “It’s very easy, really. All I want you to do is to divert a small part of each treasure you find and give it to me.”

“What?” Alex was taken aback. “You want me to steal parts of the treasures for you?”

“How smart you are for a fish,” he mocked, and Alex angrily balled his fists. 

“No.”

“Excuse me?” 

“No,” Alex repeated. “I won’t do that. If you want to cheat on the rest of the crew that’s fine by me, but I won’t let you pull me into it.”

“I don’t think you understand this right; I wasn’t asking, I’m ordering you to do this,” Onyx said. 

Alex huffed. “I get that you have your own ship and all now, but as I understand it Morden is still the one calling the shots, so I most certainly won’t go behind his back like this.” 

Onyx’s eyes narrowed in anger, and before Alex could react he flicked his finger. Excruciating pain cursed through Alex’s body, and he only just managed not to scream. 

“Morden may be the boss, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to do what I tell you. In case you’ve forgotten, I have control of your bracelet too, and unlike Morden I have absolutely no qualms about using it.” Onyx smirked at him. “You should be scared of Morden, sure, but maybe you should fear me even more.”

“I’m not scared of either you or Morden,” Alex pressed out between clenched teeth, lying. 

“Oh?” Onyx cocked an eyebrow. “Guess we’ll have to change that, then.” 

Another bolt of death magic shot through Alex, even more painful than the last, locking his muscles and leaving him panting. 

“Well? Was that enough, or do you want another?”

Alex shook his head. 

“Good.” Onyx grinned at him triumphantly, and it took Alex all of his control not to scratch out his eyes. “I take it that you finally understand your task from now on?”

“What if I tell Morden?” Alex asked. 

Onyx sneered. “Do you really think he’d believe you? You, the fish that lied to him and tried to get us all killed, over me, who has been his loyal subordinate for years?”

“Not so loyal if you’re trying to deceive him, are you?” Alex shot back, then yelped at the brief sting of death magic in his wrist. 

"Still, there’s no way he’d believe you,” Onyx declared confidently. “He’d just think you were trying to discredit me, and he wouldn’t like that at all, trust me.” 

Alex grimaced, as much as he disliked Onyx, he had to admit he was probably right. There was no reason for Morden to trust him, and he’d probably just get mad at him for making things up. He absolutely hated this situation, if he didn’t do as Onyx said the pirate would torture him further, while if he obeyed and was found out later, he’d be done for as well. There was no easy way out of this, and it wasn’t like he actually had much of a choice. 

“Alright,” he relented. “I’ll do as you say.”

The triumphant grin was back on Onyx’s face. “Very good. I’m afraid that for the treasure you found today it’s a bit too late, but you can make up for it by giving me that stone for now.” He gestured towards the large sapphire pendant Alex carried around his neck. 

“No!” Alex protested.

“I thought you’d have learned not to talk back to me by now,” Onyx said threateningly. 

“No!” Alex protectively grasped the stone in his hand. “Morden gave it to me, it’s my share of the treasure, you already got yours.”

But apparently Onyx wasn’t in the mood for arguing the matter further and activated the death bracelet another time. Alex thrashed in the water for what felt like eternity before Onyx finally relented.

“Will you be reasonable now, or do I have to blast you again?”

“No,” Alex choked out between laboured gasps for air. His entire body felt incredibly sore, there was no way he wanted to feel that pain again. 

“Then give me the stone,” Onyx ordered and stretched out his hand. 

Glaring at him hatefully Alex undid the clasp of the necklace behind his head and reluctantly passed it on to Onyx, who pocketed it without further glance. 

“Oh, don’t look so gloomy, you’ll be fine, as long as you do as I say.”


	9. Chapter 9

“What does _Thanatos_ even mean?” Alex asked between juicy bites of papaya. He was savouring the second part of his reward for leading the pirates to a gold transport, while the first one had consisted of a small bag filled with gold coins that Morden called ‘Spanish doubloons’. 

“It’s the name of a mythological figure,” Morden replied. He sat comfortably in the usual lifeboat and cut another piece of papaya. “He’s sometimes referred to as the god of death but is also seen more as a personification of the concept as well.”

“God of death, huh?” Alex’s ear fins twitched in amusement. “And here I thought that calling your ship _Ruthless_ was putting it on a little thick.”

“As you might see, subtlety isn’t necessarily what people are going for when naming their ships.”

“Clearly not,” he quipped. Nibbling on another fruit slice Morden had handed him, he debated whether or not he should risk asking him if the name _Welsh Dragon_ had any mythological meaning as well. No, he decided, it would only lead to the uncomfortable question of where he’d heard that name before. Instead, he gestured towards the bow of the ship and asked, “Is that him? The figurehead, is it supposed to be Thanatos?”

Morden looked a bit surprised. “Well connected, Verus.” He smiled at him. “Indeed it is, he is often portrayed as a winged youth holding an extinguished torch and a sword.”

Alex’s face darkened. “You don’t have to act so astonished every time I say something even remotely intelligent, I might not know a lot of human stuff, but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid.” 

“Of course not, I apologise,” Morden appeased and offered him another piece of fruit. Alex regarded him warily, unsure of whether or not he really meant it. He still accepted the papaya as a peace offering. 

“Do you believe in that god?” Alex asked. 

“No.” Morden shook his head. “What about you? Are there any you believe in? Do merfolk have gods?”

Alex pondered the question. “Not really,” he replied eventually. “At least not like that… though in some stories the sky and the sea are acting as people, so I guess one could call them gods.” 

“What stories do you mean?”

Alex shrugged. “Just stories that you tell larvae, how fish and other creatures were made, how islands and reefs came to be, or why storms happen. That kind of stuff.”

“So there is a merfolk mythology?” Morden asked with interest. 

“Yes… It’s not really something uniform though, different pods will have different stories for the same things, depending on what their parents told them.”

“What’s your version of why storms happen, then?”

Alex hesitated. He remembered the time when he’d made the mistake to excitedly tell a group from Richard’s crew how the island they were resting on had grown from the sea – and how they had laughed at him for it. Surely Morden would ridicule his explanation as well… except, he hadn’t done something like that even once so far. No matter what questions Alex had asked, he had never made fun of him for it and generally tried to answer them to the best of his knowledge. Maybe he owed him the same?

“Storms happen when the sea and the sky are fighting,” he began slowly. “They often get along well, like now –“ he gestured around to emphasise the sunshine and small waves “- but sometimes they get into arguments and fight.”

“Sounds like a very tumultuous relationship those two have, at least when you think of the fierce storms that crop up ever so often,” Morden commented dryly. 

“Yes, but –“ Alex agitatedly swished his tail, thinking of what he’d been told as a larvae. “No matter how hard they fight, how long and furious a storm is, they always make up in the end. No storm lasts forever.” 

Morden smiled. “That’s a nice thing to keep in mind, especially when you’re hanging on for dear life during a hurricane.”

Alex flicked his ear fins. “I can imagine. I like storms, but if my survival during one depended on such a wooden contraption…” He shuddered. “I’ll never understand why humans do that willingly.” 

“No? Forgive me if I’m wrong, but you seem like quite the curious person to me. Wouldn’t you take the chance to explore the land as well?”

“Never!” Alex said vehemently, his fins flaring. 

Morden raised an eyebrow. “Really? But aren’t you interested in life on land and always ask me so many questions about it?”

“Sure,” Alex muttered. “I’m interested, but only from afar. I wouldn’t want to go on land, no thanks.” 

What he didn’t say was that there had been a time when he would have jumped at such an opportunity, but since then he’d learned. His scales prickled uncomfortably remembering the fear and agony he’d suffered whenever Richard’s crew had pulled him up on land as punishment or just for fun, leaving him to dry out and burn in the sun for hours. There was nothing that could ever get him willingly out of the water again. 

Morden stayed silent for a couple of minutes while he kept on cutting new slices of the papaya and handing them to Alex, who miserably brooded over the past. It had been a long time ago however, and the delicious fruit worked wonders in cheering him up. He could almost feel the sugar cruising through his veins, lightening his mood and agitating his movements. 

“What use do your ear fins have?” Morden asked eventually. “I’ve been wondering about them for a while now, their seize and positioning makes it unlikely for them to aid in locomotion.” 

Alex snorted in amusement. “Using them for swimming would be hilarious, I don’t think that’d work out well,” he commented. “They’re rather sensitive and can detect currents, so similar to the lateral line organ, but the sensations are different… uhm, and they’re also useful to keep up a water flow for breathing.” He demonstratively fluttered his ear fins. 

“Interesting…” Morden said, watching attentively. “So they don’t have any function in regard to hearing?”

“No,” Alex said bemused. “Why? Is that what your weird ear things are for?”

“Of course they are, what else would they be for?”

Alex shrugged. “I don’t know, feeling the wind?”

Morden gave a short laugh. “No, I’m afraid not. My ‘weird ear things’, as you referred to them, are called ‘auricles’ and aid in catching more sound.” 

“Huh.” Alex regarded Morden’s ears more intently. “Seems useful… though they do look really weird.”

“Your ears are behind those fins, right?” Morden asked, and when Alex confirmed he inquired further, “May I see them?”

Surprised Alex stared at Morden, unsure how to respond. The captain’s request seemed rather innocent, posed out of nothing but curiosity, and yet Alex felt reluctant to follow up. He’d had enough humans mock parts of his merfolk body that they deemed weird or monstrous, and he didn’t feel entirely comfortable with letting Morden so physically close to him. He would probably have to hold his ear fin out of the way, and Alex didn’t necessarily want to be touched by him – especially now with all the silver rings he wore. 

Following Alex’s gaze to his hands Morden seemed to realise the issue as well and then surprised Alex a second time by quickly taking the interfering rings off. 

“Alright,” Alex conceded, somehow convinced by Morden’s boldness. He knew that the human wore all those silver rings and amulets specifically as protection against magical creatures like him, that he would take some of them off in his proximity was quite unexpected. Slowly, Alex swam closer and held on to the side of the lifeboat. 

Morden learned closer as well and cautiously reached out, gently grasping the top of Alex’s right ear fin with his fingers and bending it out of the way. Despite the lightness of the touch Alex couldn’t help but squirm, his ear fins were awfully sensitive. As if he wanted to sooth Alex’s agitation Morden rubbed one of his fingertips over a fin-ray, causing Alex to shiver. 

“And? Does it meet you expectations?” Alex asked in an attempt to distract himself. He personally thought that it was pretty uninteresting, it was just a normal earhole after all, but Morden seemed satisfied. 

“Yes,” Morden said, his voice sounding a little strained from leaning over Alex. “Your ears remind me a lot of those you see on monk seals around here, actually.” He sat up and smiled. “Thank you, Verus.”

“Whatever,” Alex mumbled and pushed himself away from the lifeboat. His ear fin still tingled where Morden’s fingers had brushed over it.

~~~

Every time he talked to Morden lately, one question had persistently hung at the back of his mind: Should he tell him about what Onyx demanded of him? At first he had felt so humiliated about what had happened that he couldn’t bear the thought of talking to anyone else that night and had merely pulled himself back into the lifeboat, his body aching all over from the death magic. The next day he had half convinced himself to tell Morden as soon as he got the opportunity… and yet he’d stayed silent when the captain called him to brief him for his next mission.

He hadn’t said anything again when he delivered his report on the potential target he’d found, nor when Morden rewarded him for his help in taking the traders bark. At one point he’d been close to blurting it out, but then the fear of what might happen if Morden didn’t believe him had risen, and he’d closed his mouth again. Even though Morden generally acted friendly towards him, the things Onyx had said still rang true. There was no proof, if he accused Onyx, Morden would have to decide based purely on their contradictory statements… and well, one of them was his trusted second in command, while the other was a merman that had lied to him before. 

Then Alex had been sent to retrieve the salvageable parts of the cargo from a sunken ship, and everything had become even more complicated. He’d brooded over what to do for hours and in the end came to the conclusion that it would be for the best if he complied with Onyx’s demands. And so he had split off a small portion of the treasure, hiding it close to the anchor while he’d delivered the rest to Morden as usual. Late at night when he’d felt the death bracelet tingling again he’d recollected it before reluctantly passing it on to Onyx. 

With every piece of treasure he sneaked off to Onyx it became harder and harder to work up the courage to tell Morden. While evidence theoretically existed now, he’d also made himself complicit, and there was no guarantee that Morden’s anger would make halt before him, as Onyx loved to remind him. As long as neither of them tattled there was no way for Morden to find out, and yet Alex’s discomfort with the situation didn’t improve. He hated letting himself be pushed around by Onyx, and where Morden always praised and rewarded him, his second never seemed satisfied with what he brought. 

“Really? That is all?” Onyx scoffed. “Two weeks and you got nothing but this?”

Alex balled his fists under surface, only just managing to keep his temper in check. The _Ruthless_ had been hunting on its own the last half moon, and he’d really enjoyed the respite as long as it had lasted. 

“As I said, merfolk hoards usually aren’t very big, and I only found two while you were gone,” he said in a measured voice. “And I didn’t dare to split off more, because –“ 

“- because no one can find out, I know.” Onyx waved it off. “You’re lucky the next treasure is looking to be very interesting.”

Alex tilted his head to the side. “How so?” From what Morden had told him it had sounded like their next destination was nothing but the wreck of a merchant ship that had sunk recently. 

“I’m not sure,” Onyx said, a hint of frustration running in his voice. “Morden just kept going on and on about some chest that’s supposed to be hidden in the captain’s quarters of that ship.”

“Morden knows what’s on the ship?” Alex asked with surprise. 

Onyx threw him an annoyed look. “One of the new recruits from that trading bark a while ago saw the sinking, so of course Morden knows which ship it is and whom it belonged to. Though I guess he probably doesn’t tell you such things, you’re just a fish, after all.” 

“He didn’t tell you what exactly it is he wants either,” Alex pointed out. He tensed when Onyx’s face darkened, preparing for the all-too familiar pain of the death bracelet. Luckily, the pirate seemed preoccupied with the prospective treasure at the moment. 

“Whatever is in that chest, it has to be extremely valuable to get Morden that obsessed with it,” Onyx said. “So you will get me something from it.”

Dread rose in Alex. “But isn’t that risky? What if Morden notices?”

“What, are you scared?” Onyx challenged. “Just don’t be stupid and don’t pick the most obvious thing. Merfolk are supposed to have great intuition and all that, right? It’ll be fine.”

~~~

While sensing the first pull of a new treasure usually excited him, it now filled him with nothing but apprehension. He still dutifully alerted the pirates and then guided them in the right direction until he spotted the wreck on the seafloor. The _Thanatos_ dropped anchor and started to prepare the lifeboat while he dived down to explore the wreckage. The closer he got the stronger the pull of the treasure became and the more he realised that this sinking had not been an accident. The ship laying on the bottom of the ocean beneath him hadn’t sunk in a storm, it had been shot down.

There were large holes in the hull, the masts were shattered, and the entire ship had broken in half. All in all it didn’t look like it’d been as big as the _Thanatos,_ but it wasn’t a small ship either. Swimming closer he was glad that enough time had passed since the sinking that the local fish and other creatures had taken care of the corpses by now. He first explored the outside of the wreck, but apart from some thrown around metal pieces from the rigging there wasn’t much to find. Next, he turned to one of the large holes in the hull and dived inside. 

Following the increasingly stronger pull of the treasure he made his way through the ship, but quickly ran into a problem that he hadn’t considered before. Despite the canon damage the ship was still mostly intact, which meant that once he left the glimmer of light coming in through the openings, it was pitch-dark. Hoping to find a better lit path to the ship’s hold he swam back and tried the next hole, only to find himself surrounded by darkness not long after. No matter which entryway he tried, there didn’t seem to be a way for him to reach the treasure. 

Frustrated he decided to swim back up, the pirates would probably begin to wonder what was taking him so long any time now. 

“And?” Morden asked when Alex emerged next to the lifeboat. 

“The wreck is there, and I can feel that there’s something valuable inside, but…” Alex trailed off, feeling a little silly.

Morden’s eyes narrowed marginally. “But?”

“But I can’t get to the treasure, it’s too dark.” Alex nervously swished his tail and quickly continued. “Trust me, I tried, but there’s no way I can get to it without swimming through narrow passages in utter darkness, not even mentioning that I’d have to find and identify the treasures by touch alone, and then I would have to get back out again…”

“Alright, alright, I understand the problem,” Morden interrupted. 

Alex half expected to be told to get over it and retrieve the treasure anyway, but instead Morden stood up and called for the crew to bring him something that Alex didn’t understand. There was movement up on deck, and it didn’t take long before one of the pirates threw Morden a small object, which he caught safely. Then he turned back to Alex. 

“This is a glow vial,” he explained, holding up a small glass bottle filled with a clear liquid. “It can be activated like this –“ He demonstratively shook the vial, and Alex’s eyes widened when the liquid within began to emit a faint light. “- and then it should hold for a while.”

Carefully Alex took the vial from Morden, fascinated by the light shining through the webbing between his fingers. Although humans didn’t posses any magic of their own, the way they used and repurposed the one found around them was awe-inspiring. Equipped with the glow vial Alex dived back down to the shipwreck and was delighted to see that the light of the vial got only stronger the darker the water around him became. Holding it up in front of him he confidently followed the pull of the treasures through the wreck, startling several grumpy looking moray eels on his way. 

A couple of times the vial unfortunately illuminated the half-eaten bodies of former sailors, as well as the crabs and fish feasting on them. Alex tried his best to not look at the corpses too much but couldn’t help noticing that for simple merchants they seemed surprisingly well-armed. Finally, the narrow corridor opened into a bigger room, and Alex excitedly descended upon the jumbled cargo. He took stock of the spoils, taking note of which objects the pirates would want, and then began to transport them up to the surface. 

About halfway through his third trip through the ship the glow vial lost its power, but he quickly reactivated it the way Morden had shown him. After having cleared the storeroom from everything valuable, he reluctantly turned to follow the remaining call leading him to the ship’s heck. The sinking had made an absolute mess of captain’s quarters, the windows had shattered, and the furniture lay in a broken heap on what had used to be a wall but now acted as the floor. Spurred on by the pull of the treasure Alex dug into the heap.

Suddenly a dark piece of fabric caught his attention. Intrigued he pulled it out and almost dropped it in shock when he realised what he was holding. Black background, white skull and crossed bones – it was a pirate flag. Instantly the unusually strong armament of the crew made sense – this wasn’t some merchant vessel; this had been a pirate ship. Before Alex had thought that maybe some other pirate crew had sunk the ship on accident while trying to rob it, but now things began to look like a different story. Was this a case of the pirate’s intended target fighting back and winning? Or had the Navy been involved?

Either way, it ultimately didn’t matter anymore. If anything, he was now even more curious to find out what it was that Morden wanted so badly, and so he turned back to the task at hand. After running out of light and having to reactivate the glow vial again, he finally found a small chest wedged between two pieces of a broken shelf. He nervously placed it on the floor next to the glow vial, then lifted the lid. Inside the box were two fabric pouches, of which one clearly emitted the stronger pull. 

Alex opened it first and gasped when he spotted the large diamond within. It had been cut into an oval shape and sparkled brightly in the magical light. In contrast the second pouch only contained a couple off golden rings with flat, engraved bezels. Alex scoffed, there was no doubt that the diamond was the treasure Morden wanted. Just in case the captain also knew about those weird rings Alex only took out about half of them for Onyx, then closed the chest again and set out to deliver the last part of the treasure.

“I found this in the captain’s quarters,” Alex said as he handed the chest to Morden, carefully watching his reaction. However, Morden didn’t let any possible excitement show and merely opened the chest to check its contents as he’d done with each one before. Only when he closed the chest again did Alex catch a hint of triumph on his face. 

“Well done, Verus,” he said with a satisfied smile. “Very well done indeed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, Thanatos is explicitly the god/personification of peaceful death, and his sisters, the Keres, take over the violent part. Now there’s two options, a) Morden isn’t aware of this, or b) he knows and thought it was ironic. A less fun fact is that the Caribbean monk seal ( _Neomonachus tropicalis_ ) Morden mentions has gone extinct by now due to hunting and overfishing.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who would have thought that a global pandemic doesn't give you more time to write... I'm so sorry this chapter took so long! I really hope that I can upload more consistently again soon. On another note, please look at this [amazing sketch](https://amaranthia-draws.tumblr.com/post/190645935297/a-sketch-of-mermaidalex-because-im) of merman Alex [amaranthia-draws](https://amaranthia-draws.tumblr.com/) made!

Unfortunately, Onyx was a lot less happy with what he brought him. 

“This is a joke, isn’t it?” he asked, looking up from the golden rings Alex had given him. “Where’s the rest?”

“There’s nothing else,” Alex replied flatly. “The only thing in the chest besides these rings was a large diamond, which I couldn’t take because it probably is what Morden wanted.”

“These are just a bunch of signet rings!” Onyx snapped. “Ugh, I can’t believe it… why didn’t you at least take something actually valuable from the rest of the treasure?”

“Hey, you only said that you wanted something from that chest!” Alex protested. 

Onyx slammed his hand against the side of the gun port, causing Alex to flinch. “And it didn’t cross your mind that maybe this might not be enough? Didn’t you think about that at all, huh?” He scoffed. “No, of course you didn’t, you’re just a dumb fish after all.”

Anger burned through Alex and he balled his fists, trying his best to keep himself from lashing out at the pirate. 

Onyx scoffed again. “The least you could do to make up for your failure would be to give me that new armlet of yours,” he declared. 

Clenching his teeth Alex removed the bejewelled band of gold from his upper arm and silently handed it over. He’d only gotten it today as a reward for his work and was upset to give it up again so soon, but he’d learned by now that refusing Onyx never got him anything besides painful blasts of death magic. 

“God, Morden really does give you nothing but the prettiest things, doesn’t he?” Onyx sneered as he looked the armlet over, then stashed it away in the pocket of his black coat. “I really don’t get why he’s even bothering, it’s not like he actually needs to provide any additional motivation for you.”

There was nothing for Alex to say, after all he quietly shared the same assessment. There was no reason for Morden to give him anything, not fruits and especially not parts of the treasures. And Alex most certainly didn’t buy any of the captain’s talk about him being a member of his crew, it couldn’t be more than a private joke to him. 

“Half of the crew thinks he’s crazy, you know?” Onyx continued. “For giving you stuff, but especially for wasting so much time talking to a fish. What the hell would he even talk to you about, the finer details of what kind of raw fish tastes the best?” He huffed and shook his head. “But well, there’s nothing to be done about it. He’s the captain, so it’s not like anyone would actually say something. Not to his face, at least.”

“Are you done now?” Alex interrupted. For some reason, the dismissiveness with which Onyx spoke of Morden annoyed him. “I heard that talking too much to a fish is crazy, so you might want to watch that.”

Onyx jumped up. “You’re the one who should watch your mouth!” he hissed. Then, without wasting another glance at Alex, he stalked away.

~~~

The _Thanatos_ and the _Ruthless_ anchored close to an uninhabited island while a small group of pirates had been sent to shore to hunt and refill the freshwater supply. When Alex had first learned that humans weren’t able to drink normal water but needed to take their land-water with them, he’d thought it to be a stupid joke – until he’d seen the large water barrels being loaded on to the ship. The more he found out about humans, the more he wondered why they would ever dip a fin even close to the ocean. But that was another thing, wasn’t it? They didn’t even have fins.

The waters around the island were thankfully rich in fish, and so Alex was just in the process of devouring a sumptuous lunch when suddenly the bracelet around his wrist tingled. He reluctantly hid the half-eaten fish between a couple of rocks on the seafloor, hoping that it would still be there by the time he returned, and swam up to the surface, where he’d already spotted the lifeboat. Probably Morden, who wanted to brief him on their next target. Or maybe he wanted to know more about the deep-water currents Alex had told him about the day before while enjoying the second part of his reward. 

He’d definitely accept some more muskmelon to make up for his interrupted lunch and was almost looking forward to the interesting conversation that might accompany it, but then suddenly felt a lot less optimistic once he poked his head above the waves. Not only was Morden not holding any fruit, he also looked uncharacteristically serious and displeased. As if to make things even worse, Alex’s precognition chose exactly that moment to start warning him of a nearing threat. Swallowing uncomfortably he tried to calm himself and swam up to the boat carefully.

“I hope this is important, I was just in the middle of eating an especially big yellow jack, you know,” he said light-heartedly, hoping to make the captain smile with his cheerfulness. 

Morden did not smile. 

“Tell me, Verus, do you know what a signet ring is?” he asked.

This was bad, Alex didn’t exactly know what was going on, but he was absolutely certain that it wasn’t good. The words _signet ring_ sounded awfully familiar, although he couldn’t remember where he’d heard them before and truthfully said, “No, I don’t.”

“They are usually engraved with a personal seal or a crest and are used to make impressions in wax, as a mean to authenticate a document or letter,” Morden explained. “For example, this is a signet ring bearing the crest of a very important Navy officer.” He took a golden ring with a flat bezel out of his pocket and showed it to Alex.

Alex’s heart sank, it looked just like the rings he’d found in the hidden chest yesterday.

“Since you are a very smart person, I’m sure you can deduce why having this will be very beneficial to me,” Morden said, looking at Alex expectantly.

“You said these things are used to authenticate stuff, right?” Alex said after a moment. He wasn’t in the mood to solve Morden’s puzzles at all but concluded that it would be better to play along for now. “So if you have the same ring as that Navy guy, you can use it to pretend you’re him in letters.”

Morden nodded. “Exactly. Being able to fake seals is quite useful when you want to request information or mess up the positioning of Navy ships by sending false orders. Sadly, given how important these seals are, they are very hard to come by. A certain Captain Avis was well known for being in the possession of many signet rings belonging to all kinds of Navy personnel and other important persons. At our last stop in Port Royal I had the delightful opportunity to converse with him about said collection, unfortunately he didn’t have any of them on his person when we met at the tavern. However, he did disclose to me that he keeps them hidden in a chest in his quarters – he did get awfully drunk that night, you see.” 

Morden’s characteristic smirk returned for a moment but didn’t serve to make Alex feel any better. His stomach felt as if it had been filled with stones, this was very bad.

“When I recently heard of the tragic sinking of Avis’ ship, I decided to make good use of the opportunity to acquire his prized collection,” Morden continued. “Now, I bet you can imagine my surprise and dismay when I noticed that about half of it was missing.” He gave Alex a pointed look.

Outwardly Alex tried to stay calm and not show any of his fear, but on the inside he was panicking. He’d chosen the wrong treasure. Morden hadn’t been after the diamond; he’d wanted the rings. Alex could have hit himself, if only he’d taken the diamond for Onyx, then everyone would have been happy, and he wouldn’t be in this mess. He really was a stupid fish.

“Maybe that captain lost them?” he suggested.

Morden shook his head. “No, they were way too valuable for him to treat them with carelessness. The rest of them were in perfect condition and the cloth bag holding them was closed tightly, making it quite unlikely for them to have fallen out during the sinking… Which leaves the marks showing that the chest has been opened recently as my only lead.”

Alex’s tail swished agitatedly; he didn’t know what to say. His premonition was screaming at him to get away as fast as possible, but he couldn’t. Fleeing now would do nothing besides making him look even more guilty, and with the death bracelet there was no way for him to actually escape the pirate’s wrath. 

Morden sighed. “I am very disappointed in you, Verus,” he said. “I truly wouldn’t have expected you to do something so stupid and reckless as trying to steal from me.”

“I didn’t!” Alex protested, genuinely panicking. “I wouldn’t steal from you, that’s stupid, and besides, these rings don’t even have any pretty stones, so if I were to take something for myself, I definitely wouldn’t have chosen them!”

“Let me be frank with you, I already know that you opened the chest and stole the rings,” Morden said factually. “These lies will serve you nothing, but depending on how quickly you hand them over you can determine the severity of your punishment.” 

Alex’s despair grew, he didn’t have the rings anymore. Onyx had them, but he surely wouldn’t admit to that or go as far as to give them back in Alex’s place. Maybe now was the time to finally come clean and tell Morden the truth? No, in all likelihood Morden would just think that he was trying to blame his own actions onto someone he’d never made a secret about not liking. 

“I don’t have the rings, I promise.” He looked at Morden intently, trying to convey innocence. 

“You really have disappointed me, Verus. I distinctly remember that we agreed on honesty; you’d do better to keep your promise.”

Slowly Alex’s fear transformed into anger. He’d never agreed on anything, Morden simply gave orders that Alex had to follow them unless he wanted to suffer. Saying that he’d ‘agreed’ was nothing but a bad euphemism for forcing him under pain to say that he understood the pirates’ demands. Before he could rethink and stop himself his temper got the better of him. 

“You can search me if you want, I don't have your fucking rings,” he hissed, his fins flaring in fury. 

His outbreak made everyone in hearing range look up and turn their heads towards the disturbance, curious at what was going on. Morden regarded the watching eyes of his crew, then turned back to Alex. His face hardened. 

Pain ripped through Alex, spreading from his wrist to fill his entire body, and he screamed. When it finally was over he drifted in the water, petrified by shock. Morden had actually used the death bracelet on him. It shouldn’t be so surprising to him, after all the captain had ordered the bracelet to be put on him for exactly that purpose. And yet he couldn’t help feeling hurt at the fact that he’d actually done it. He almost felt betrayed. 

After a few moments, his shock passed and he propelled himself back up to the surface, only sticking his head out of the water as far as absolutely necessary. He glowered.

Morden met his glare with hard eyes. “I’m afraid that by treating you with kindness and consideration I have allowed you to develop a wrong impression of how far you may push me without facing consequences.” He spoke louder than usual, and his voice carried clearly over the water, assuring that not only Alex but all crewmembers were able to hear it as well. “This intolerable insolence ends right now; stop lying to me and return the rings you stole.”

A murmur went through the onlookers, they all understood the seriousness of Alex’s offense.

“I can’t return those rings, because I don’t have them,” Alex said truthfully.

“Please, Verus, enough of this foolishness.”

“But I really don’t have them!” Alex swished his tail in agitation. “What do you want me to do, conjure them up with magic? How should I – no, no wait –“ 

This time he was expecting the pain from the death bracelet to hit him, but that didn’t lessen the unbearable agony cursing through is body one bit. 

“Well?” Morden asked when he surfaced again. “Are you going to be reasonable?”

Alex clenched his teeth, trying to swallow his fear. “I don’t have the rings.” 

He braced himself. 

Morden sighed. “We can continue this process for as long as you’d like, I for one don’t have any qualms about torturing the truth out of a thief. However, I find it hard to believe that it is enjoyable to you, which is why I don’t understand why you would act so wilfully obstructive.”

“I’m not, it’s just that I can’t give you the rings,” Alex insisted. 

“Hmm.” Morden looked at him silently for a moment, then shook his head. “I do want to believe you, Verus, but there is no way I can do that with the fact that the chest has clearly been opened after the sinking.”

“Maybe some other merfolk found it and took the rings?” Alex suggested carefully, aware of how weak of an explanation it was.

“And they only took a few rings and left the large diamond?” Morden raised an eyebrow. “No, I’m afraid there is only one plausible conclusion in this situation. Now, I can continue to shock you with the death bracelet until you give back what you stole, although I suppose that it is possible that you don’t have them on your person at the moment. Therefore, allow me to offer you an ultimatum: Return the signet rings until noon tomorrow or suffer the consequences. Even in the unlikely case that you truly didn’t steal the rings, this should give you more than enough time to swim back to the wreck and search for them. Which is it, Verus? Do you want to continue this charade, or will you accept the ultimatum?”

Alex bit his lip; he knew exactly that those rings weren’t in the wreck. But maybe it would give him enough time to convince Onyx to give him the rings, so that he could pass them on to Morden?

“I accept the ultimatum,” he declared, hoping with all his heart that Onyx would be reasonable.


	11. Chapter 11

Everything hurt. The powerful shocks of the death bracelet had left Alex’s muscles cramped and aching, and so his descent from the surface more resembled a slow drift than active swimming. He gingerly settled on the stony seafloor and steadily pumped water through his gills to calm his racing heartbeat. Well. Now that had been a disaster.

The one thing he’d worried about the most in the last few moons had actually happened: Morden had found out that he’d been stealing parts of a treasure. In Alex’s opinion, _stealing_ was a weird way of putting it, after all it wasn’t as if the treasures had belonged to the captain in any way before he had brought them to him. According to merfolk customs they actually belonged to Alex, who had found them, but he highly doubted that arguing this would make Morden any less likely to hurt him. 

There was the other thing: Morden had used the death bracelet to hurt him. It shouldn’t have been surprising, he hadn’t shown any hesitation to do so when they’d caught him, Alex really should have seen this coming. And yet the agonising death magic had caught him off guard. Even though Morden had clearly been furious, and his premonition had screamed of danger, he had somehow believed that the captain wouldn’t hurt him. For some reason he’d thought that the friendly interactions they’d had would keep Morden from going that far. For some reason, he had trusted him. 

Alex laughed bitterly, then winced when his sore stomach muscles didn’t appreciate the motion one bit. One really would have thought that he of all people would know better than to place any of kind trust in a human – least of all a pirate captain. But apparently all it took had been some delicious fruits and shiny treasures in combination with interesting conversations that satisfied his curiosity for everything human, and he’d thrown all caution overboard again. It was embarrassing.

If only he had never fallen for the captain’s put-on friendliness, then this development wouldn’t have shocked him so much. He was angry at Morden for hurting him and angry at Onyx for getting him into this situation, but mostly he was angry at himself. The half-eaten fish he’d saved was still there, but he couldn’t bring himself to retrieve it. The nausea inducing death magic wasn’t the only thing that had spoilt his appetite for good.

~~~

Since Alex knew that the missing signet rings weren’t anywhere he could fetch them from, there was nothing for him to do but wait until sundown. He tried not to think too much about what would happen if Onyx refused to give him the rings, but alone the fact that he didn’t have much of a backup plan worried him immensely. Due to the death bracelet fleeing wasn’t an option, and he had no illusions about what would happen if he tried to tell Morden the truth.

He kept close to the seafloor in the shallow waters, deeming it better to stay out of the pirates’ sight at the moment. By now even the last person in the crew would have heard of what he’d supposedly done, and he knew from experience that pirates didn’t take this kind of offence lightly. Just thinking of what Richard’s crew had done when they had suspected him of something similar made a shiver run over his scales. Whatever would happen if his plan failed, out of all things he hoped that they wouldn’t pull him up on land as punishment.

Finally, the sun set and after a while the sounds on deck died down as the pirates went to sleep and only the night shift remained. Under the cover of darkness Alex swam up to the smaller _Ruthless_ , and his heart jumped with relief when he spotted a dark silhouette slouching in the usual gun port. 

Once he’d reached the hull he started speaking without preamble. “Good, you’re already here.” He stretched a hand up. “Quick, give me the rings.”

“I think you’re having the wrong impression here,” Onyx stated, not moving from his lazy slouch. “I’m not gonna give them to you.”

“What?” Alex was taken aback. 

“You know, I used to think these rings were next to worthless, but now that Morden wants them so badly and I understand how important they are, there’s no way I’m letting go of them.”

“But if I don’t bring them to Morden tomorrow, he’ll punish me!”

“So?” Onyx shrugged. “I don’t see how that would concern me.”

“You…!” Alex cut himself off, well aware that appealing to the pirate’s better nature would be pointless. For some reason Onyx had disliked him from the start and had always seemed to enjoy the opportunity to use the death bracelet on him, so Alex knew that he didn’t even have to try pleading with him. No, he would need a different strategy to convince Onyx.

“If you give me the rings, I will bring you much better treasures in the future,” he promised. 

“Oh yeah? Didn’t you always try to make me believe that those little scraps you brought me were the best you could manage? And now you want me to throw away one of the few actually valuable things and trust you to make up for it later?” Onyx scoffed. “Do you really think I’m stupid enough to fall for that?”

Alex clenched his teeth. “So far I was always careful not to take away too much so that no-one would notice, but I could start taking more risks from now on if you want to,” he explained, making an effort to keep all emotions out of his voice. Hearing the treasures he’d brought to Onyx being referred to as ‘little scraps’ hurt more than he would have liked to admit, in his eyes they had been perfectly valuable and precious. 

“Interesting offer, but I don’t trust you to actually make good of it, so… no.” Onyx grinned, and Alex was so close to lashing out at him but caught himself in time. 

“I could also trade the rings against some of my treasures right now?” he offered hopefully. He released the leather pouch he used to transport his treasure in from where it had been tightly tied to his body and began looking through it for something he felt might be of similar worth as the rings in question. Finally, he chose an ornate brooch that was inlaid with many sparkly gems and held a sizable ruby in its centre. “How about this?” he asked, presenting it to Onyx. 

However, Onyx barely even glanced at it before he said, “No.”

Alex swallowed, that brooch had been one of his favourites. Determined to get those damned rings back he continued to pick out more and more pieces from his treasure, but no matter what he presented, Onyx stubbornly refused to trade. With time Alex began to suspect that he might not even be considering his offers at all and was merely amusing himself. 

“What do you want?” he snapped eventually. 

Onyx gave him a smirk. “Me? Nothing. It’s entertaining to watch you squirm and attempt to bribe me though, so by all means, please continue.” 

Again Alex’s anger threatened to break out, and it took him several moments to calm down enough so he could speak calmly. “I get that these signet rings are a lot more valuable than they look, but there’s no way they’re worth more than all of my treasure.”

“All of your treasure?” Onyx sounded surprised. “Aren’t you fish all super attached to your silly little hoards? And yet you’d give it to me?” 

First Alex hesitated, but then nodded tensely. He didn’t have any desire to part with his treasure, and just the thought of losing all of it to Onyx pained him, but there was no other option. Slowly he held out his pouch, struggling a little with the way its weight seemed to increase out of the water. 

Onyx stared at it for a moment. Then he laughed. “Damn, you’re really scared of what Morden is gonna do to you tomorrow, aren’t you?” He shook his head. “Very understandable, but sorry, as I already said before, I won’t give you the rings.”

“Why not? You said you realised they were worth more than you thought, so I get that you don’t want to make a bad deal, but there’s no way those stupid rings are more valuable than all of my treasure.”

“Probably, yes,” Onyx acknowledged. 

Alex sighed. “Good. Just give me the rings, and you can have it.”

“No.”

Frustrated Alex dropped the pouch back into the water. “Why not? What do you gain from this?”

Suddenly Onyx leaned forward. “You know, I’ve been so sick of this shit for a long time; the way Morden treats you is just ridiculous. You’re just a stupid fish, and yet he’s all out here acting as if you were a part of the crew, wasting parts of our spoils, talking to you for hours, fucking _feeding_ you fruits… And when I confronted him about it, he had the audacity to tell me that I might have something to learn from you!” He scoffed. “It’s been long overdue for him to remember what you are and who his real equals are; I so can’t wait for him to finally put you back in your place.”

Alex was surprised by the vitriolic anger in Onyx’s eyes; he’d known that the pirate had never particularly liked him, but he wouldn’t have expected this amount of hatred. 

“So you’re refusing to give me the rings, because you want Morden to punish me for supposedly stealing them, and there’s no way you’ll change your mind?” 

“Hmm, maybe you’re not that dumb after all.”

Alex took a deep breath and played the last card he had. “If you don’t give me rings, I will tell Morden everything.”

For the first time this evening Onyx looked rattled. “You wouldn’t dare!” he hissed.

“Why not?” Alex asked ostensibly calm. “It’s not as if I’d have anything to lose. Morden is mad at me already anyways.”

“You think Morden is mad at you now? That’s no comparison to how mad he’ll be if he thinks you’re lying to him about this! And make no mistake, he _will_ think that you’re lying at him; there’s absolutely no chance he’d ever believe you.”

“Well, maybe I’m willing to try my luck,” Alex snapped back. “You’re not leaving me much of a choice here, if I don’t give the rings to Morden, he’ll hurt me!”

“Morden will hurt you, sure, but he won’t kill you.”

“But you think that he will kill me if he thinks I’m lying to him?” Alex’s voice sounded sceptical. 

Onyx’s eyes narrowed. “The punishment would be a lot harsher, but he’d leave you alive, I guess. However, I can guarantee you that if you tell Morden the truth about our little arrangement, _I_ will kill you.”

“What?” 

“Listen closely, I’m not gonna repeat myself again,” Onyx said. “If you tell Morden – which would be useless because he’s not gonna believe a word you say anyways – I will kill you and cut out your heart. Who knows, maybe the old myths are actually true.” 

Alex recoiled and stared at Onyx with wide eyes, shocked at what he had just said. Of course he knew which myths Onyx referred to, they had caused immeasurable harm towards merfolk over time. Alex didn’t know how it had started, but for some reason humans had believed that owning merfolk hearts gave them the ability to breathe underwater. 

Countless merfolk had been slaughtered in pursuit of this, and even though the myths had been proven wrong again and again, they lived on. In certain circles the trade with ‘merfolk hearts’ still flourished, and for every hundred fakes there was at least one that was real. Even Richard had turned out to be interested in the supposed magical properties of merfolk body parts. 

_Blood dripping into the waves as they pulled the mermaid up on deck, the barbed harpoon ripping at her impaled flesh, her lifeless eyes staring at him in rightful accusation…_

Lost in his memories it took Alex a moment until he noticed that Onyx had started talking again. 

“…so just be a good little fish tomorrow and keep your mouth shut, take your punishment, and remember your place afterwards, and we won’t have any problems. Understood?”

Distinctly sensing that it would be a very bad idea to upset the pirate now, Alex nodded. Onyx was clearly pleased by this, and with one last smirk he disappeared into the ship.

~~~

Once Onyx had left Alex dove back under the waves, swimming around aimlessly as his head spun. What was he supposed to do now? His only plan hadn’t worked out, and additionally to not giving him the rings Onyx had threatened to kill him. Usually such a threat from a human wouldn’t have fazed him much, but this one having control of the death bracelet changed things quite a bit. And he held absolutely no doubt that Onyx had meant what he’d said.

It really looked like he would just have to suck it up and suffer through what ever Morden would do to him. He swallowed, not knowing what it was the captain planned for him was almost as bad the certainty that it would be something majorly unpleasant. So far he had only shocked him with the death bracelet and slapped him once in retribution for biting his hand, but Alex was sure that neither of these would suffice for this offense. There were countless other options that shot through his mind, one more frightening than the other – pirates weren’t infamous for their cruelty for nothing.

Perhaps telling Morden the truth would be the better choice. For all his insistence that the captain wouldn’t believe Alex anyways, Onyx had seemed rather unnerved when he had threatened to spill the truth. And Onyx’s strong reaction wasn’t the only thing that gave Alex the hope that telling Morden wouldn’t necessarily be useless. After all, against Alex’s expectations, Morden had always been willing to listen to him before, so maybe there actually was a chance? There was only one way to find out. Having made his decision, he began to swim up towards the _Thanatos_. 

However, the flaps of his fin soon lost their energy, and he stopped. No, no, what was he thinking? There was no way Morden would trust a fish that had already been caught lying to him over his second in command. Onyx was right, to Morden it would look like he was trying to save his skin and throw someone he disliked to the sharks instead. It would only anger Morden even more and put Onyx onto him. 

There was no other way, he’d just have to apologise to the captain tomorrow and hope for the best. Of course he was scared, but he’d faced and survived the wrath of pirates before, so surely he could deal with this too. As long as they didn’t pull him up on land, he could handle whatever they threw at him. 

…what if that was exactly what they were gonna do, though? Suddenly, his conviction faltered. 

After they had learned how much Alex despised being on land, Richard’s crew had loved to use it against him as an easy and effective form of punishment. Objectively it shouldn’t have been nearly as bad as some of the other things they’d done to him, and yet it was the one he’d feared the most. He’d hated how weak and helpless it made him feel, his body heavy and unable to move, his skin dry and burning under the sun, his lips cracked, scales itching, a painful headache pulsing in his temples, everything in him screaming for water…

He couldn’t let it happen again, he couldn’t just wait and accept the possibility of it without doing everything in his power to stop it. Sure, Morden might not trust him and only get madder, but if Alex did nothing, then his anger and the subsequent punishment were guaranteed. Even if the chances of convincing the captain of his innocence were slim, shouldn’t he at least try it? 

That still left Onyx’s threat, but Morden would probably protect him – after all he was an important and useful resource to the pirates. It was very risky, but Alex had never been good at sitting by idly and waiting for the catastrophe to hit. No, he wouldn’t just give up. Even if Morden didn’t believe him, at least he’d know that he’d tried.

~~~

There was no light to be seen in the captain’s quarters, which meant that Morden was probably asleep. Before he could lose courage and change his mind again Alex tentatively threw one of the small stones he’d collected at one of the windows, where it touched the glass without much momentum and fell back into the water. Reckoning that this couldn’t have been enough to wake Morden, Alex carefully weight the next, slightly bigger stone in his hand and threw it more forcefully.

It hit the window with an audible _clack_ , and Alex held his breath, waiting. When nothing happened, he threw another stone, this time with even more strength behind it. The window rattled in its frame. He was just debating whether or not he would have to break it to get Morden’s attention, when finally a light flared up in the cabin and shortly thereafter a window was pushed open. Given that he’d just been rudely awakened, Morden’s expression was understandably sour. 

His eyes found Alex in the water beneath and his face darkened even further. “I truly hope for you that there is a very good reason for this,” he said curtly.

Alex hesitated as suddenly all his previous worries rushed through his mind; he shouldn’t have done this. 

“Well? Are you ready to give me the rings now?”

“No, I –“ Alex started, but Morden cut him off. 

“Then what are you doing here?” he snapped. “I thought I had made myself unambiguously clear on what I expect from you, and if you won’t fulfil that, I cannot think of anything else that would justify you waking me up in the middle of the night. Not that that couldn’t wait until the morning as well, but -”

“Onyx has the rings,” Alex blurted out. 

His agitation grew with every moment that Morden stayed silent, and he was about to try and explain when Morden asked, “And how would they have come into Onyx’s possession?”

“I gave them to him last night.”

Morden scoffed. “I really would have thought that you’d be able to come up with a better excuse than that – one that would have even remotely made sense. Even disregarding the absurd notion that you’d give Onyx something in the first place; were he in possession of the rings, he would have given them to me immediately once he learned that I wanted them. So if you came here just to amuse me with ludicrous fairy tales, then –“

“No, please – hear me out, okay?” Alex implored. “I know it sounds weird, but please Morden, just hear me out.” He looked up, trying to discern how close the captain was to simply slamming the window shut again, but the flickering light of the lamp made it even harder to read his expression than usual. 

Morden sighed, then gave him a curt nod. “Alright.”

“Thanks.” The relief he felt lasted only a second, before he remembered that the brunt of the task still lay ahead, and he quickly collected his thoughts. “Well, I guess I’d better start at the beginning…”

He spoke calmly and quietly, just loud enough to be sure that Morden would understand him without alerting the night shift, and explained everything that had led to this situation. He told him about how Onyx had threatened him, how he’d forced him to bring him small parts of each treasure that he found, how he had specifically requested something from the hidden chest, and how Alex, assuming that Morden wanted the diamond, had brought him the signet rings. Lastly, he talked of how he’d tried to convince Onyx to give the rings back but had been denied.

Thankfully, Morden didn’t interrupt him and just listened, his face an unreadable mask. Only when Alex was done and lapsed into an uneasy silence did he speak.

“So you want to tell me that not only did you steal from me, but you also lied to me the entire time about it, and somehow that is supposed to make me believe you?” The scepticism in Morden’s voice made Alex swallow.

“Yes.”

Morden shook his head. “I know that you aren’t particularly fond of Onyx, but that you would make up such a ridiculous story to blame him for your mistakes –“

“I didn’t’!” Alex protested. “I’m telling the truth! Look, I know this is hard to believe ‘cause he’s your second and all that – but I am telling the truth, I swear.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me before?” Morden asked with irritation. “If this were true, you would have told me right away.”

“I didn’t dare to because Onyx said you wouldn’t believe me anyways.”

“And so you supposedly decided to just roll over, too scared to do anything about it? I’m sorry, but I find that quite hard to believe.”

“He threatened to kill me!” Alex didn’t add that this had happened only recently, reasoning that Morden didn’t need to know everything. “You forget that he can control the death bracelet too, it’s kinda hard for me to just ignore that.”

Morden scoffed but decided to drop that point for now.

“That might be fair, but Onyx wouldn’t betray me like this,” he argued instead. “He already receives a larger share than anyone else besides me, there’s no reason for him to do this.”

Now it was Alex’s time to be sceptical. “Because unlike every other pirate, he doesn’t always want more and more no matter what?” 

For the first time Morden appeared less certain. “Fine, it isn’t completely out of the realm of possibility,” he admitted. “But that doesn’t mean you are telling the truth.”

“Fair enough.” Alex knew that he hadn’t given Morden anything to go off on besides his word, and he was well aware that that wasn’t much. Unfortunately, there was no proof he could present, but perhaps Morden would be able to find it himself. “The stuff that I gave him, Onyx must be hiding it somewhere. If you find it, you’ll know I’m telling the truth.”

“You want me to search Onyx’s cabin for the allegedly stolen treasures?” 

“Well, I would do it myself, but…” He superfluously gestured towards his tail. 

Morden still didn’t look entirely convinced.

“Just look for it, okay?” Alex beseeched. “I get that you don’t trust me, but please, give me at least the benefit of investigating for yourself before you write off my account completely.”

Morden regarded him for a while, then sighed. “Very well. I will look into this tomorrow.”

It felt as if a large weight lifted from Alex’s shoulders. “Thank you.” 

“If it turns out that you’ve been lying to me again –“

“I know, I know, I will come to regret it dearly and all that.” Alex waved it off as if the threat didn’t faze him, but on the inside he was terrified of what would happen if Morden didn’t find the treasures.

Morden didn’t seem too happy about his tone but nodded. “Good. I will be expecting you at noon.” 

And with that he considered the conversation to be over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I decided that merfolk have a tapetum lucidum, please imagine Alex with glowing eyes in the dark like a cat.


	12. Chapter 12

Despite the very comfortable patch of seagrass he’d found the night before, Alex didn’t sleep well. With the way his mind was occupied with worrying, he only managed to grab a couple hours of sleep, until the early morning light woke him up again. He used one of the handy stones littering the seafloor to open some clams for breakfast, before he swam up to the surface and floated beneath it, hoping to stay out of the pirate’s sights while he watched them. 

Stationary as they were anchored close to the island, the _Thanatos_ and the _Ruthless_ had been towed together, and just like the day before the gangway connecting the two was busy with crewmembers using the rare opportunity to mingle. Alex saw Charles running multiple errands between the ships and even spotted Onyx stalking over to the _Thanatos_ , however he never caught sight of the one person he was expecting. Where was Morden? 

Alex’s anxiety increased with every pirate crossing the plank that wasn’t the captain and nervously watched the sun climb up the sky, steadily nearing its zenith. He swished his tail restlessly; what was Morden waiting for? Hadn’t he said that he would search for the stolen treasures in the morning? Suddenly, an uncomfortable thought crept up on him, causing a cold shiver to run over his scales. What if, after sleeping on it for the night, Morden had changed his mind? He’d been very tired during their conversation, so it wouldn’t be too surprising if he now distrusted he the decisions he’d made back then.

Alex wanted to believe in the promise Morden had made, but it was hard to keep hoping when he hadn’t even set foot onto the _Ruthless_ yet. Onyx had gone over on the _Thanatos_ a while ago, which made it the perfect opportunity for the captain to search his quarters… Alex cursed; this looked more and more as if instead of investigating for himself, Morden had decided to confront Onyx directly. Which gave Onyx a chance to deny the accusation, tell all sorts of lies, and blame Alex for everything. And of course, if it was his word against Alex’s, who would Morden rather believe?

Alex cursed again, too troubled to pay much attention to Charles struggling to carry a bag that was several seizes too large for his small frame back over to the _Thanatos_. What was he supposed to do now? Telling Morden everything had been his last resort, and even though he’d been aware of how much of a gamble it was, he had still hoped that it would work. But now it seemed like Onyx had been right, Morden didn’t believe him and would be even angrier than if Alex had just kept his mouth shut… It hurt to admit, but maybe he should have listened to Onyx. 

The only thing that didn’t make any sense was how his premonition still hadn’t caught up on the nearing danger.

Suddenly, a commotion on the _Thanatos_ caught his attention, the pirates were gathering around the mainmast, and so he curiously swam closer as well. Poking his head above the surface next to the hull, he couldn’t see what was going on up on deck, but he heard the agitated whispers of the crew and the angry shouts that had attracted them. It was Onyx who was shouting, he realised after a moment, however he was unable to make out the exact words that were being yelled. 

A ripple went through the assembled crowd, and the crewwoman standing close to the railing above him gasped in surprise, “It was Onyx?”

Alex felt dizzy as relief hit him; Morden had found out the truth.

~~~

“…so with Onyx out of the way, I sneaked under deck and made it to the cabin undetected – but the door was locked!”

Alex was swimming next to a porthole and casually kept pace with the ship. 

“What did you do then?” he asked with the appropriate face of suspense, encouraging Charles to continue his excited recount what had happened the day before. 

“I picked the lock!” Charles said triumphantly. “It’d been a while since I last did that – you won’t believe how pissed Morden was when he caught me snooping that one time, I’d fully sworn off my lockpicking tools forever - but I guess in the end it was actually good that I kept them.”

Alex smiled, apparently ‘pirate’ wasn’t the first illicit career Charles had pursued in his life. The image of a furious Morden was very amusing as well, at least now that he wasn’t in acute danger of ending up at the receiving end of his anger anymore. 

“Once I was inside the cabin the hardest part was done… or so I thought. Turns out Onyx is a lot better at hiding things than I would have given him credit for, and at first I couldn’t find any of the things Morden told me to look for. As you can imagine, I was getting kinda antsy, I knew that Morden was distracting Onyx, but I had no idea when he’d run out of things to talk with him about.”

“So I was crawling around frantically and searched underneath the furniture again, expecting Onyx to come in at any moment, when I suddenly hit my head on something under the bed, and voilà! There it was, a big bag full of treasures tied to the bed frame! I was so happy I almost forgot about how much my poor noggin hurt.” Charles gave Alex a self-conscious smile and rubbed the back of his head. 

Alex nodded empathetically. “Your tremendous sacrifice is greatly appreciated,” he declared gravely. Charles giggled at his exaggeration. 

“You are most welcome, Mr Merman,” he replied in similar style and bowed, unable to hide his grin.

“All jokes aside, I truly am very grateful for what you did. Without your help… if you hadn’t found the stuff…” Alex shook his head. “You really saved my tail there.”

“Please, it was nothing,” Charles assured. “Of course I had to help you, I owe you my life after all. Besides, it was Morden’s plan, I just did what he told me. By the way, I never believed that you stole something from us, I knew you are way too smart for that, and –“

“Now there you are, Mr Walsh.”

Charles jumped at the voice behind him, quickly turned around and almost collided with someone’s legs. 

“Captain! I was just talking to Verus.”

“I can see that,” Morden said. “And while I do by no means want to impair your social life, I must insist that you get back to work instantly – you know very well that you’re supposed to be assisting the cook in the galley right now and have no business on the gun deck – unless you wish to volunteer for scrubbing the floor in here?”

Charles blanched. “No, thank you, sir, I’m sorry, I’m on my way.” He scrambled away. 

Alex too made a move to swim away but was halted by Morden. 

“Stay here for a moment, please,” Morden said and took the place Charles had just vacated so hastily. 

Reluctantly, Alex turned around to face him, his smile and good mood from before had entirely dissipated. 

When Alex didn’t say anything, Morden asked, “Charles has already sufficiently filled you in on yesterday’s events, I presume?”

“Yes,” Alex said curtly. 

“Good.” Morden gave him a smile which Alex didn’t reciprocate. “You must be quite pleased with how this situation has turned out. Regardless of your participation in the crime, I have decided to let you off the hook, so to speak. Onyx has been removed from his position of command and demoted by me, while his more immediate punishment was voted upon by the crew.”

Alex had already known that, despite their day’s work, pirates didn’t tolerate others stealing from their shares at all, and Onyx’s punishment on the evening before had only served to confirm that. He had watched the flogging only for a short time before his discomfort had gotten too great and he’d dived away.

Morden continued. “Furthermore, I suspect that you will be glad to hear that I have revoked Onyx’s control over the death bracelet and don’t plan on transferring it to someone else. Afterall, I wouldn’t want you to be confused again about who it is your loyalty should belong to.”

Alex ground his teeth; Morden didn’t need to say more for him to understand the accusation behind his words. Of course he now thought that Alex shouldn’t have involved himself with Onyx in the first place and completely forgot about the threat he had been under at the time, as well as that without the newfound evidence, no one would have believed him. At no point had this been a question of loyalty – not that he’d ever felt such thing towards either of them.

Still, it surprised him that Morden hadn’t given the death bracelet control to another crewmember. He could have easily transferred it to Moire, his trusted quartermaster, or Ember, the new commander of the _Ruthless_. With no one else controlling the death bracelet, Alex would only need to kill Morden and he’d be free to leave… and right now the captain was sitting horribly close to the water. He regarded him thoughtfully, gauging the distance, and quickly calculated his chances. If only it wasn’t for all that silver jewellery…

“On another note, I’ve got something for you,” Morden announced, by all indications oblivious to Alex’s sinister thoughts. 

He pulled something from his coat pocket and showed it to Alex, revealing a golden armlet and a large sapphire pendant. Alex blinked in surprise, of course he recognised the treasures that Onyx had taken from him, but he wouldn’t have expected Morden to remember. He accepted them eagerly and didn’t waste any time to slip the armlet back around his upper arm, then fumbled with the clasp of the necklace. 

“Here, let me hep you with that,” Morden offered and reached out towards him. 

Alex flinched back and _hissed_ , baring his sharp teeth in threat. 

Morden stared at him in surprise, his hand frozen in the air between them before he caught himself and pulled it back. 

“Was that all?” Alex asked brusquely. 

“Yes,” Morden replied after a moment. He looked as if there was something else on his mind, but Alex dived away before he had the chance to say it. He had no interest in spending any more time with him than he absolutely had to. 

After the emotional turmoil of the last few days had died down, the overwhelming relief had slowly given way to anger. Of course he was happy that Morden had found out the truth and that Onyx didn’t pose a threat to him anymore, but he hadn’t forgotten about the way Morden had hurt him. Sure, back then the captain had thought it to be justified (not that that made it any better), but now that it turned out that Alex had been more or less innocent, he would have expected Morden to address it. 

Instead Morden had pretended that it hadn’t happened and acted like they would go just back to the same easy and friendly conversations as before. It made Alex furious that Morden didn’t even seem to understand that he had done something wrong, at least that was what he concluded from the lack of apology. Maybe Morden still considered himself in the right for what he’d done, reasoning that, after all, it had been Alex who had removed the signet rings from the chest. Or maybe he simply didn’t consider torturing a merman to be that big of a deal and hadn’t even thought twice about it.

Alex scoffed, a pirate captain apologising to a merman? It was ridiculous. Just because Morden liked to act all civilised and polite that didn’t mean that he actually was a decent person. In the end it just came down to Alex having been fooled by the captain’s acting, which led to him harbouring unrealistic expectations that would ultimately be shattered. For all its awfulness, this event had at least served as a wakeup call for him before he did something genuinely stupid. 

Such as trusting or liking a pirate.

~~~

It took Onyx almost a week of resting under deck until he was recovered enough to get back to work. Alex had been stunned when he first spotted him high up in the rigging fixing a sail, apparently Morden hadn’t been kidding when he’d said that Onyx had been demoted. Even though he couldn’t control the death bracelet anymore, Alex decided that it would be the best to stir clear of Onyx for the foreseeable future. He had hoped that Morden would assign Onyx back to the _Ruthless_ , which was hunting alone at the moment, but sadly the captain had opted for keeping a close eye on him instead.

Another person he tried to stay away from as much as possible was Morden. Unfortunately, he still had to report to him whenever called, and so he had reverted back to his initial tactic of not speaking a word more than absolutely necessary. Just like before Morden had tried to fall back into their usual rhythm of easy conversation, but Alex had refused to let himself be tempted into repeating the same mistakes again. The briefing and his subsequent report on their next target passed without relapse.

The _Thanatos_ had no problems taking the barely armed merchant ship, the feeble resistance was squashed almost immediately, and not long thereafter the pirates left with a significantly heavier cargo. Once the other ship was out of sight, Alex felt the familiar tingles of the death bracelet and reluctantly made his way up to the surface. As expected Morden was waiting for him in the lifeboat.

“Verus,” he acknowledged with a nod when Alex’s head emerged in the water in front of him. 

Alex stayed silent.

Morden didn’t let the lack of reaction faze him. “The target you selected was a very lucrative catch, you did excellent work today.” He picked up a golden figurine from the bottom of the boat and offered it to Alex. “Your share.”

For a short moment Alex debated whether he should refuse it, but then his instincts won over his anger and he quickly grabbed it. The figurine was shaped like an animal with four slender legs, an elegant neck and two branched structures on the top of its small head. Alex set on to ask what kind of animal this was but caught himself in time and quietly stored the figurine in his bag for later inspection. When he looked up again, he saw that Morden watching him with an unreadable expression.

“Well?” Morden prompted. “What do you say?”

Alex clenched his teeth. “Thank you,” he pressed out, remembering how much Morden had always prodded him to show manners.

For some reason, Morden still didn’t look much happier than before. “You’re welcome. Now, for the second part of your reward –“ He pulled a small apple from his coat pocket. “Here, it’s yours. Though if you tell me more about deep sea currents, I’ll even cut it for you.”

The teasing undertone Morden’s voice enraged Alex even more. 

“No.”

“Please, Verus, there’s no need to play coy. I know that you want it.” 

“I do,” Alex acknowledged. “But not from you.”

Morden looked almost baffled, and Alex used the opportunity to snatch the apple from his hand. 

“Is there something else, or can I leave now?” he asked peevishly. 

Morden’s face went blank again. “No, that is all. You are dismissed.”

~~~

As good as rebuffing Morden had felt, it also left Alex with a familiar problem: He couldn’t eat the apple. His narrow teeth simply weren’t suited for this kind of task. Sure, he could gnaw on the apple and savour the taste he got from that, but it would be no comparison to devouring it in thinly sliced pieces. There was absolutely no way he would swim back to Morden though, so he would have to think of a different solution.

Swimming around the ship he passed an open gunport, through which he could see a crewman busying himself with the cannon. Suddenly, a plan sprung into his head and he stopped. After watching the crewman more closely, he recognised him as the one who was responsible for his sleeping accommodation and Rachel’s new friend. Alex didn’t know whether or not he shared her hatred for him, but he had stopped her from killing him once, which had to count for something. 

Well, there was only one way to find out. His premonition wasn’t telling him anything, and so he boldly propelled himself closer to the gunport.

“Hey, you there!” he called, and the crewman jumped at the voice coming from a direction he wouldn’t have expected it. “Cinder, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Cinder said guardedly. 

“Awesome.” Not to wasting any more time on small-talk, Alex held up the apple. “Do you think you could cut this for me? I’m afraid my teeth are more of the ‘tearing flesh apart’ kind and less of the ‘chewing fruit’ kind.” 

Cinder regarded him for a moment, deliberating. 

“I can do that,” he replied eventually. “Will you save me from drowning if I accidentally fall into the ocean?”

“You mean in a storm?”

“That too, but also in general.”

“Why? Can’t you swim?” Alex smirked at the absurdity.

“No, I can’t.”

Alex was shocked. “Why would you get on a ship if you can’t swim?”

Cinder shrugged. “For the good air?”

Without meaning to, Alex laughed. 

“Alright, if you ever find yourself in threat of drowning, give me a call and I’ll be there,” he promised.

“Much appreciated,” Cinder said, took the apple and began to cut it with a dagger he’d pulled from his belt.

A short while later Alex was munching on the delicious apple slices and decided that maybe, this Cinder wasn’t the wort person on the ship.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!

Morden hated to admit it, but with each passing day the truth became harder to deny: He had made a mistake. Making mistakes was a natural part of being human, of course, and he usually tried not to dwell on the feelings of regret but preferred to view them as an unfortunate, yet valuable learning opportunity. However, this rationalisation couldn’t change the fact that he absolutely loathed them and did his best to make sure they happened as rarely as possible, something he was generally very good at. To think himself above error would be foolish and a mistake in it of itself, but still. It bugged him.

The path of action had seemed so clear at the time, like there hadn’t been any other option. Verus had stolen from him and then when confronted lied about it, going so far as to swear at him loud enough for the crew hear it. Torturing the merman hadn’t been his first choice; he didn’t actually take any particular pleasure in that kind of thing, no matter what the Navy’s official proclamation for his arrest said. The situation had simply not allowed for anything else. Or so he had told himself. 

But then Onyx’s involvement and the actual happenings had been uncovered, revealing Morden’s judgment to have been false. Verus had been innocent – more or less, in a way he had still very much done what he’d been accused of and even worse – but Morden could hardly blame him for acting in accordance with his self-preservation. After all, that was the way their arrangement worked as well. It had taken him months to get the merman to warm up to him, and now everything had been set back to the beginning, with an even slimmer chance of Verus ever opening up again. 

It had been naïve of him to think that Verus wouldn’t hold a grudge, after all he now knew that, despite the popular opinion back in London, merfolk were very well capable of the same range of thoughts and emotions as humans were. Verus’ reaction had surprised him, but what surprised him even more was how much it bothered him. He hadn’t expected the merman’s clear distaste for him to sting in any way, usually other people’s bad opinions didn’t faze him much. However, this time there was no denying that he was upset at Verus’ refusal to talk to him and that he genuinely missed their conversations. 

He had learned a lot from them, about merfolk in general and about Verus in particular. The handsome merman was stubborn and resourceful, ruthless enough to set the whole crew up to be slaughtered by the Navy, and yet sentimental enough that he had saved the cabin boy from drowning. He was also very quick-witted and sassy, making Morden laugh often. Another thing that had impressed him was Verus’ intelligence, and he felt a little ashamed to admit that he too had severely underestimated merfolk regarding that in the past. 

He’d been fascinated by merfolk ever since he’d sneaked into the magical creature exhibit as a boy, but hadn’t been able to experience them up close, let alone talk to one regularly up until recently. It had been interesting to find out which parts of the myths were fact, and which were fiction. From that point of view it made sense that he wasn’t happy about the subject of his studies refusing to cooperate. Yes, that must be it. But then why did seeing Verus talking to other members of the crew annoy him so much? He wasn’t prone to jealously, so this was… odd. 

For some to him incomprehensible reason, Verus had picked Cinder of all people to help him with the fruits he received as rewards, and to Morden’s growing irritation they seemed to be getting along awfully well. However, there was no rational reason for him to oppose their friendship, and so he refrained from commenting on it when talking to Cinder. When he teasingly mentioned it to Verus, the merman had simply ignored him. It was frustrating. Morden didn’t know how to fix the situation, all the tricks he’d deployed the first time didn’t seem to work anymore, and so far time hadn’t done much in cooling the merman’s temper either. 

At the moment they were sailing northwards at moderate speed, course set for New Providence and its main port Nassau, which they would presumably reach in a couple of days, depending on the winds. It was high time that they came into port, their storages were filled with treasures, the food and water supplies were dwindling, and the crew was tired and deserved a rest. Although what was commonly understood as ‘resting’ would probably be the last thing on their minds during shore leave. Smiling slightly Morden stood upon the quarterdeck, hands clasped behind his back as he looked out over the sea. 

The water was beautifully clear with only minimal waves, making it easy to see the steeply rising shoreface of the small island they were passing. A movement to the right caught his attention, and he spotted the edges of a blue fin – Verus was back from his hunt. He didn’t know where the merman went whenever he disappeared into the ocean, but he was always enjoyed watching him swim with the ship. His iridescent blue scales sparkled in the sunlight as he dashed through the waves; agile, strong, and beautiful. This time however something seemed off about his movements, and Morden frowned as he followed Verus with his gaze. Then suddenly he saw it.

About fifty yards behind Verus there was a large shadow moving in the water, and despite the merman’s impressive speed it seemed to be catching up. Morden pulled a telescope from his belt and focussed on it. The large sea monster was almost ten times as long at the merman it pursued and at least a hundred times the weight, and yet it didn’t seem to have any troubles keeping up. Its impressive jaws and scaly body reminded Morden of a crocodile, but instead of legs it had four paddle-like limbs as well as a long tail that ended in a powerful fluke. 

Verus must have accidentally stirred it up wherever he’d been on his hunt, and now he himself had become the hunted. Sea monsters had an almost insatiable appetite in general, but magical creatures such as merfolk were their favourite dish by far. If Verus didn’t manage to lose it, there was no chance of it letting off… at as things were going right now, it didn’t look like Verus could outswim it. Each strong flap of the monster’s fluke reduced the distance between them. Morden grimaced; having his merman eaten by a sea monster did not suit his plans at all.

On the main deck a group of crewmen had gathered at the railing, they too had spotted the monster. Climbing down the stairs Morden joined them and stepped up next to Cinder.

“Well?” he asked his master gunner. “Can we shoot it?”

Cinder gauged the distance. “With that speed it has? If we were closer, maybe. But not at this range.”

“I strongly advise against getting any closer, that thing is massive,” Moire said, joining them.

Unfortunately, Morden had to agree with her assessment. Sea monsters usually didn’t seek out ships, but they were known to have no qualms about attacking them when they came too close. Although his _Thanatos_ was a sizeable ship for a pirate, he didn’t have any illusions about how it would fare in a battle against such a large and powerful creature. No, if the ship sunk in an attempt to save the merman, nothing would be won either. As it was now, Verus was on his own.

They tensely watched the sea monster gaining more and more on the merman swimming for his life.

“Can’t we at least try to shoot it?” Morden demanded as Verus only narrowly avoided the monster’s huge jaws. 

“Sure, we could try,” Cinder said. “Might as well hit the fish by accident though, no way to aim properly with how fast and far away they are.”

Morden only just managed to hold back the colourful curses lying on his tongue. He focussed his telescope on Verus again and noticed something curious: Verus was heading straight for the small island, and the steep shoreface underneath him came rapidly closer. Lifting the telescope slightly Morden saw it; Verus was aiming for the shallow bay ahead, counting on the monster being too large to follow him out of the depths. For a couple of breathless minutes Morden watched the chase, when finally the monster was forced to stop about thirty yards before the shore. 

Moire next him breathed out in relief. “He made it.”

Morden hummed, turning to keep the monster in sight as the _Thanatos_ passed by it at a safe distance, sailing on next to the island. It was true, Verus had indeed made it into safety for now, the small bay was too shallow for the sea monster to follow him, but it also left him effectively trapped until the monster lost interest. And given how much sea monsters loved to eat merfolk, it was impossible to say when, or even _if,_ the monster would be leaving its post. They had to get Verus out of there, preferably without getting the ship any closer.

As if to make matters worse, the monster started digging. 

It would still take a while for it to reach the trapped merman, but the time they had to free him had been greatly reduced. They had to get Verus out of there now. Suddenly, an idea formed in Morden’s mind, and almost without thinking he shrugged off his coat, letting it drop to the deck carelessly. Next he undid the belts holding various equipment and unwrapped the sash tied around his waist.

“What the hell are you doing?” Moire asked with irritation as he pulled off his boots. 

Morden handed his sabre to her and ordered, “Sail around the island, drop anchor on the other side and wait for us.”

“Wait for you… Captain, no!” She stepped forward and held out her arm but was too slow to stop him from stepping up onto the railing. “No, don’t –“ 

He jumped.

~~~

Alex’s heart was racing; this had been way too close for his taste. There had been more than one moment in which he’d thought himself done for, and only his premonition and fast reflexes had prevented him from being crushed between the monster’s jaws. At first he’d hoped that the pirates would help him, shoot the monster with their canons or something like that, but nothing had happened. Luckily, he’d spotted the shallow bay ahead and opted for getting himself into safety there instead of taking his chances with the pirates.

Unfortunately, it hadn’t brought him the kind of safety he’d hoped for. Not only was the monster still there, trapping him in the small bay, but it had also started digging into the sand, slowly progressing towards the shore. It would take quite a while before it would be able reach him, but since he didn’t have anywhere left to go, that didn’t serve to make him feel any better. 

Lifting his head up above the waves Alex could see the tail end of the ship, sailing on around the island, leaving him behind. It had been stupid of him to hope for any kind of help from the pirates, after all Morden had been annoyed with him lately, so of course he couldn’t expect him to risk everything to come to his rescue. Pragmatic as he was, the captain had probably already accepted his inevitable death and was thinking about how to catch a replacement. 

Alex was pondering whether he could slip around the monster and get away fast enough before it noticed, when suddenly a person stepped into his view on the beach. Surprised Alex looked up. Morden raised a hand in greeting once he spotted him, coming to a halt at the edge of the shore. 

“Verus.” He politely nodded at him, as if they had set up a meeting on purpose. “Good to see you’re still in one piece.”

He wore only his pants and white shirt, no boots or hat, and was drenched from head to toe. Alex tried not to pay too much attention to the way the wet shirt clung to his chest and arms. But even more confusing than that was Morden being here at all. Alex couldn’t believe it, had he actually come to help him?

Becoming aware of how stupidly he was staring at Morden, he quickly caught himself and asked, “Did you _swim_ here from the ship?”

“Yes.” 

So he could swim, after all. 

“Did you not see the giant sea monster?” Alex superfluously gestured towards the cloud of stirred up sand in the water behind him.

Morden followed his gesture, then smiled slightly. “It appears to be fairly occupied at the moment.” 

Alex huffed. It was just like the arrogant captain to act so nonchalant about the monster that had nearly eaten him. 

“Well then? Are you going to kill it now, or what?” he asked, sceptically eyeing Morden’s disarmed state. 

His question seemed to amuse Morden. “I’m flattered by your assessment of my combat skills, however, I’m afraid that this is beyond even my capabilities.”

“So you just came here for a prime spot to watch me being devoured by that creature?” 

“No, I came to get you out of here.”

“How?” Alex asked bitterly. “You can’t kill the monster, there’s no way it’ll let off, I can’t get past it, and I obviously can’t walk over the island with you.” 

“True, you can’t,” Morden acknowledged. “That’s why I will carry you.”

“What?” Again Alex found himself staring at the captain in confusion. 

“I will carry you across the island,” Morden repeated, as if that made it make any more sense. “The monster won’t be able to follow your trace, and the others are waiting for us on the other side, ready to leave immediately.” 

“No.”

“What do you mean? Do you think the monster will find you too quickly?” 

Alex shook his head. “No, the other side of the island should be too far away for it to get my scent again.”

“Well then, let’s not waste any more time,” Morden said and began to slip the silver rings from his fingers, stowing them away in his pockets. 

“No,” Alex said again, more insistently. “You’re not carrying me anywhere.”

“What?” Morden looked at him astonished. “Why not?”

Alex swallowed, what could he say to that? ‘Because I don’t want you to touch me’? ‘Because I don’t want to dry out and burn in the sun’? ‘Because Richard used to have me pulled on land as punishment, and now I panic at the thought alone’? 

When Alex didn’t reply, Morden said, “If you’re concerned about whether I’ll be able to lift you, worry not, I’m quite certain I can manage – though we might need to take some breaks on the way.”

So he would put him down on the ground? What of he put him down in the middle of the island and left him there? Fear rose in Alex; he couldn’t let that happen. 

Morden had finished taking off his silver rings and amulets and waded into the sea towards Alex. Quickly Alex propelled himself backwards, bringing more distance between them. 

“Verus,” Morden sighed, the water almost reaching up to his waist. “Unless you have a better idea, I can’t see why you’d oppose this plan.”

“I’m not going to let you carry me, because I don’t trust you.” Alex hissed. 

“I understand that you don’t trust me in general, but I assure you that you will be quite safe doing so for now. I have no interest in seeing you harmed, I simply want to get you away from this monster so that we can continue on safely. It will work, trust me.”

“How could I ever trust you after what you did?” Alex cried. “You didn't trust me either when I was telling the truth and then you hurt me!”

Morden looked at him incredulously. “That’s what this is about? How are you still so upset about that; you know it was a misunderstanding – which, by the way, you weren’t very helpful in solving either until the very last minute. It was nothing personal.”

“Being tortured with death magic is pretty fucking personal to me!” 

“And what exactly do you expect me to do about this now?” Morden asked, sounding uncharacteristically frustrated. “It can’t be undone, and I dare say that there are way more pressing issues to deal with at the moment.”

“You could apologise? At least once? For a start?” Alex suggested, already well aware that there was absolutely zero chance someone like Morden would apologise to anyone, least of all a merman. 

So it came to his great surprise when Morden closed his eyes for a moment, cleared his throat and said, “I apologise. It was wrong of me to hurt you, and I wish things had gone differently. I understand that you don’t trust me, but I’m afraid that you simply don’t have another choice at the moment.”

This was not the kind of response Alex had expected in any shape or form, he was stunned. Morden was looking back at him, waiting for a reply. 

“Alright,” Alex forced himself to say. 

A loud splash caused them to look over at the monster, and a chill ran over Alex’s scales seeing how much closer it had come. 

“Well then?” Morden looked at him expectantly. 

Alex sighed, he still didn’t trust Morden one bit, and he really didn’t want to be brought on land either. But as Morden had said, there just wasn’t any other choice. Steeling himself he paddled over to the captain. It was weird to see him in the water, and suddenly Alex realised how easy it would be for him to pull Morden underwater and hold him there until he drowned. He wasn’t armed, had taken off the protective jewellery, and who knew whether he’d be fast enough to activate the death bracelet in time. Unfortunately, killing Morden would remove all hope for Alex’s survival as well. 

Alex stiffened when Morden first touched him, but then allowed himself to be pulled close against Morden’s chest as he brought an arm under and around his tail and wrapped the other around his upper body. Reluctantly, Alex too wrapped his arms around Morden’s neck, willing himself to stay calm.

“Hold on tight,” Morden instructed, gripped securely, and lifted him slightly. Then he began to move out of the water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sea monster was inspired by the Mosasaurus.


End file.
